The Karma Downs
by Cherry
Summary: Insanity, normalcy, truth, prejudice, and college life. [Sam, Emma, Bobby] Sometimes, life is just life. Sometimes, it's something more. Final chapter uploaded.
1. Chapter 1

The Karma Downs [Sam, Emma, Bobby]  
April - August, 2002  
Cherry Ice  
  
  
_Between life and death, truth and beauty, who we are and who we need to be, there lie the karma downs.  
  
There are many people who I need to thank for their help with this one. Timey, Mitai, and Indiana for beta'ing, and who were there when I needed to bounce ideas around or for support. Nute, for providing essential information on Sam. Bounce, Chris, Lindy, and Drea for endless encouragement.  
  
Archival is open to anyone who asks and anyone who has prior permission.  
  
  
  
University is a juggling act, even at the best of times. As Sam is about to discover, being a member of the spandex squad isn't exactly the best of times.   
  
Sometimes, life is just life. Sometimes, it's something more.  
  
  
I don't own Sam, Emma, Bobby, Columbia, the X-Men, or the danger room. I don't even own a truck, so any attempt to sue me will only result in the loss of the legal fees paid in an attempt to get my butt into court. I can't say that if you don't recognize them, they're mine; because in one very noticeable exception that isn't exactly true.   
_  
  
  
  
  
  
  


*  
  
**  
The Karma Downs**  
  
**1/13**  
*  


  
  
  
  
  
It started with a drink in a bar.  
  
No, it started a long time before that. The drink and the bar, they were just points on a string of events that shaped the way the world would end.  
  
It started when a girl felt the slap of her father's opinions on her mind, his hand on her skin. It started when children came into powers that they couldn't control, when Robert Drake had a grieving Emma Frost thrown into his mind.  
  
It started when a sister was killed, when an island was dropped, when a boy realized that he was a man with no way to be who or what he needed to be.  
  
And it started when Samuel Guthrie came back from Kentucky a changed man.  
  
*  
  
  
  
Sam stopped at the kitchen entrance, the tiles cold against his bare feet. Hank looked at him over top of his newspaper and nodded towards a white envelope sitting on the table.   
  
A letter came for you. From Columbia.  
  
Thank yah, Hank. Sam pulled out a chair and sat down, watching the envelope warily. His hand hovered over it briefly and it was all he could do to keep them from darting back to his sides. Hank's eyes were obscured by reflections off his reading glasses, but Sam had no doubt he was being watched. He picked up the letter slowly. It felt so *thin* between his fingers, and as he flipped it absently, he almost expected it to disappear.  
  
Well, Samuel, are you going to open it, or did you develop X-Ray vision in the time since your last physical?  
  
Sam looked over to see that Hank had neatly folded the newspaper up, and was now sitting with his hand paws on it, looking directly at him. Ah don't know. Ah'm pretty hungry, actually. Maybe Ah'll just grab a bite and take a look at it later.  
  
A yawn greeted him at this. You should listen to Hank, Jean said as she walked into the kitchen, Scott trailing a few steps behind her. He's pretty smart.  
  
Scott ran a hand through his hair and dropped into a chair beside Sam. Waiting to open it isn't going to change what the letter says. It's just going to draw it out.  
  
Jean sat down in the chair on the other side of him, an apple in her hand. He looked around, finding himself suddenly fenced in by his teammates. You're not going to let me go until Ah open it, are you?  
  
Hank shook his head.   
  
Ah don't have a chance of getting out of this, do Ah?  
  
No again, but you don't really want one.  
  
The envelope was just so thin.   
  
He slid a finger in under the flap, ripped it open and pulled out the letter before he could talk himself out of it. He read the letter head, and his name, and the words started to swim before his eyes.  
  
someone asked, and he pulled himself back into focus. He scanned the letter. Read it again, thoroughly this time, convinced that he must have read it wrong the first time. someone else asked, and he felt himself start to smile. The letter was snatched from his hand, and Jean was hugging him.  
  
He was suddenly aware that someone was clapping him on the back with a whoop, and he turned to see that Bobby had entered the kitchen sometime while he was occupied.  
  
You guys knew Ah was applying, didn't you. How'd you know that?  
  
Hank took off his glasses and set them atop his paper. A good friend of mine works in admissions, and he called me up when he saw the Xavier Institute on your application.  
  
Sam smiled briefly, and dropped his eyes.  
  
Bobby laughed. And you didn't really think that something like this would keep secret? Rumours and stories spread faster than the flu does around here.  
  
Hank offered Sam his hand, and pulled him into a bear hug when he took it. I would have written you a letter of recommendation, you know, he said quietly. I do have some contacts.  
  
Ah know, Hank, and Ah appreciate that. But this is something Ah needed to be able to do on my own.   
  
Hank patted him on the back with surprising gentleness and released him.   
  
//Congratulations, Sam,// a cool white voice said, sliding between the thoughts of those gathered in the kitchen, and Sam felt himself twitch a little bit. He saw Scott's face darken momentarily, but freed his mind of all of it. Today, everything was all right.  
  
*  
  
Bobby sat on the mansion stairs, his legs stretched out in front of him. The sun beat down upon his upturned face, trying to slide between his eyelids.   
  
Jean had told him to wear sunscreen. Her voice had thrummed idly in his head, and she'd told him to go inside and put on sunscreen.  
  
He felt the brush against his mind even as cool skin drifted past his. It wasn't invasive. Somehow, it wasn't. The presence beside him, the presence in his mind, it was just there. It didn't speak, didn't prod. He cracked his eyes open, just a little, taking in the skin exposed to the sun beside him. It was nice view.   
  
Really nice.  
  
He became aware of a chuckle after a time. he asked, and opened his eyes.  
  
You know, Robert, you're getting rather good at that. If I wasn't so used to people staring at my chest...  
  
Well, you know what they say, Em. Practice makes perfect.  
  
I have to admire your dedication.  
  
Well, it's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.  
  
She stood, and he found himself thinking that if she ever got a burn dressed like that, it would be rather painful. Not to mention just how strange the lines would be...  
  
I suppose you'd prefer that I sunbathed in the nude.  
  
Why, Emma, I'm offended. It never crossed my mind.  
  
Yes it did. It's crossed it many, many times, and it's crossing it now.  
  
He smiled and shrugged. He didn't tell her to go inside and put on sunscreen. She could look after herself.  
  
Do you want to go for a drive? She asked.  
  
he said, and fell into stride with her as she headed for the garage. The car was parked out in front of the shed, and it was sleek and white and even while sitting still gave the impression of motion. It was a panther crouched to strike and Emma seemed a part of it even as she slid in. The keys were in the ignition and she peeled out as he was closing his door.  
  
The mansion gates were standing open and they blew right by them, the air whipping past his face because the top was down as they turned off Greymalkin and out onto the highway.  
  
The sun was warm and the wind was cool and he spread his arms above himself, trying to catch the breezes in his fingers. Emma laughed and he knew it wasn't at him, it was at the speed and the thrill and the freedom and the power beneath her fingertips.  
  
She slid sunglasses down from the top of her head to cover her eyes, her long white hair whipping around her in a cloud.  
  
And they drove and he trusted that she could find their way back, even if she didn't know where they were going.  
  
You're different, he said finally.  
  
Different how? she asked, pulling tightly around a turn.  
  
I don't know. You've just... Changed. You always do, when you're not around Them.  
  
We all have different faces, Bobby. We all have different ways that we act. It's conditioned. And what about you? she asked, taking her eyes off the road for the briefest of seconds. You're troubled lately, I know. It has something to do with the others, as well.  
  
She flicked her eyes back to his again, and they were blue, so blue, through the blue lenses, the white frames. White held her together.  
  
Why would the others trouble me, Em? They're my family. They're our family.  
  
Even families fight. Especially families fight.  
  
I love them.  
  
I know. But...  
  
But sometimes I just feel like...  
  
They're smothering you?  
  
Not smothering. I wouldn't go that far.  
  
They treat you like a child.  
  
Yeah, they treat me like a child.  
  
But you're not.  
  
No, I'm not. I've been around as long as anyone, Em. I've been through as much as anyone.  
  
Yet they still act as if you're... Less... than them.  
  
No. They don't think that I'm less. Not on purpose.  
  
Not on purpose, anyway. Not consciously. But their actions speak.  
  
They just don't see that I've grown up, Em. They just don't see, and nothing that I say or do is going to show them.  
  
They should, you know. See. Noticing the strengths and weakness of a teammate...  
  
I'm not a child, Emma. Not anymore. How could I be, after everything? How *could* I be?  
  
I know, Bobby. I see. None of us are the same as we were. There's too much water under the bridge, and there are too many bodies in the currents. And if people don't start seeing that...  
  
It could get dangerous.  
  
She looked at him again, eyes heavy-lidded and still so blue, ever so blue, hair framing in a flying cloud and skin glowing white around them, and smiled lazily. We're all dangerous people, Bobby. It's already started.


	2. Chapter 2

*  
**The Karma Downs**  
**2/13  
***  


  
  
  
  
One thing was for sure.  
  
The piece of paper in his hand with the nice, neat little labels on each building bore no resemblance to the actual campus. Sam was surrounded by a sea of people, constantly ebbing and flowing around him, dressed in more colours and styles than he'd ever seen.   
  
The books in the bag slung over his shoulder were trying to drag him down. As he consulted the map again, he took a moment to be grateful for the fact that throwing two-hundred-fifty-pound, hairy men around in training sessions had gotten him into good enough shape that the weight of the books was more in his mind.  
  
Yeah, he had absolutely no idea where he was. Somewhere a clock chimed loudly, and he started. A few of the people around him picked up their paces and he realized suddenly that he was going to be late. He was going to be late for his class, so he wasn't going to get somewhere important, and he wasn't going to meet someone, and he wouldn't learn of a place, so he wouldn't meet...  
  
He shook his head. He was going to be late for his first class of his first day of his first year (of the rest of his life, if he really wanted to get carried away). That was all. They'd have to understand. This wasn't shaping up to be the first day he'd been picturing since he'd received his admissions letter in the spring.  
  
You look a little lost, someone said.  
  
He looked up, trying to find the source of the voice and a man waved at him. He was sitting on the edge of the fountain, elbows resting easily on his knees, a dark pack resting between his feet. Are you? he asked. There was a woman sitting on the other side of the fountain, her head tilted towards them a bit. Maybe she was listening to them, but all he could see through through the spray of water was white and blond hair.  
  
A bit, Sam said. Maybe just a bit. Don't suppose yah could tell me where Pupin is?  
  
The man stood, picking up his bag and slinging it over one shoulder. he said. I'll show you, actually. I've got a course there in a bit. The woman didn't move, and Sam felt a shiver of recognition course through him, but it was gone before he could pin it down.  
  
Sam saw the other man waiting for him, and shook his head as he slid into step beside him. Kyle Falco, the other man said, extending his hand. Let me guess. Waveform Engineering?  
  
Intro to Physics 1: Mechanics, actually, Sam said, juggling his maps as he shook Kyle's hand. Samuel Guthrie. Pleased to meet yah.  
  
Kyle nodded, and Sam thought suddenly that they were probably much the same age. He shuffled his feet a bit at the thought. Here *he* was, heading for Intro to Physics... Had McGarry my first few years, too, Kyle said. She teaches Physics to the masses, and some more specialised courses in aerodynamics once you get up to grad work. She's a tough old bear to get around, but she's the best at what she does. I probably wouldn't have made it through my first year if it hadn't been for her. Good thing too. I'd have lost my scholarship if I'd failed. Just because I'm here on the team doesn't mean they won't pull it. That there is the Low Library, Kyle said, motioning at the building that the fountain and its twin flanked.  
  
Which team? Sam asked. Football, he thought. Or basketball.  
  
Lacrosse. First season I didn't even see the field, which seemed a bit of a waste of their cash to me, but I'm starting string now.  
  
The people milling around them thinned out now, and Sam could actually see them. Here, a boy racing for manhood with a tattooed neck, his ball cap twisted to the side; a girl with fishnets, a plaid skirt, and a bright blue eyebrow stud; a girl with blonde and white hair flicking around the corner. Two men leaning up against a tree, their faces inches apart. A small group throwing a frisbee back and forth across the green, students sprawled out on the grass, propped up on their elbows as they leafed through heavy texts or hollered back and forth to one another. The sun was bright and warm, and he could still vaguely hear the fountain through the murmurs around him.  
  
He thought that he could get used to this.  
  
You planning on trying out for any teams? Kyle asked him.  
  
Ah... No. Probably not. I won't have time. Ah have other duties, you see. Places I need to be - another team that Ah'm on, outside of school. Which was, technically, the truth.  
  
Okay. You living on-campus?  
  
Sam shook his head. Ah'm going to commute.   
  
Just wondered. Makes it easier to be involved with things, living right where they are.   
  
Made it easier for a *lot* of things, though, to keep living out at Xavier's. When you had to rush around in the night, you only had to run down the stairs.   
  
Where are you? Manhattan?  
  
Westchester, actually.  
  
Long drive, Kyle said. Make it hard for morning classes.  
  
I don't mind. I like the mornings. They're peaceful. He always had liked the mornings, but he'd grown to love them more as of late. No one parading about in less than most people's underwear, peering into your mind; no couples trying so hard to pretend for the rest of them that everything was okay, when they was so far from it that it made your hackles rise. So, yeah, he loved the mornings.  
  
Look man, this is it, Kyle said, pointing up at the building they were approaching, glass and steel shining down at them balefully. Pupin. You'll be able to figure out most of the other stuff now. Just keep a hold of that map, and ignore all the people. It's easy to get twisted around at first, but you'll catch the hang of it. He reached out and pulled open the doors. Your class is going to be the second door on the right, down that hall, he said as the air conditioning hit them, pointing out the corridor. I've got to get up to the fourth floor. You can find it by yourself?  
  
Sam said. He tucked his hands under the straps of his pack, trying to pull it up. Thanks for all the help. Ah appreciate it.  
  
Hey, no problem, Kyle said, nodding. Good to meet you, man.  
  
You too, Sam said with a wave as the other man bounded off toward the elevator bank.   
  
He straightened his pack again and headed down the hall. There weren't very many people around, and his steps echoed. He paused at the door, his hand resting on the knob, and he took a deep breath. The door clicked beneath his fingers, and he slid in as quietly as he could. The risers in the room were full and still as he made his way in, the only speaker a woman standing down at a podium, pointing at a blackboard. She continued to speak as he groped his way to a seat, her eyes only leaving him as he pulled his books from his bag.  
  
And she continued to address the room.  
  
He didn't know whether to laugh or groan.  
  
*  
  
Sam's bag was heavy on his back as he tried to remember just where he'd parked his truck. He'd had three classes today, and from what he'd heard at the beginning of the other two, he hadn't really missed anything in McGarry's introduction. The breeze was chill with the coming evening, plucking at his skin through the fabric of his t-shirt.  
  
He ducked his head and kept walking. He was at the green in front of the Hoover Building again, so it had to be somewhere nearby.  
  
Someone called, a hand dropping onto his shoulder, and he spun at the noise, feeling himself slip into alert.  
  
Kyle backed up rapidly, hands in the air. Whoa, man. Just me.  
  
Sorry about that, Sam said, glad that the fading light would cover the colour settling into his cheeks. It wasn't like anything had actually happened...  
  
I called your name a couple of times, but you seemed pretty absorbed.  
  
Yeah. Just trying to remember where Ah parked my truck.  
  
Shouldn't be that hard to find, another voice added, and Sam noticed the speaker for the first time. She was tall, with delicately slanted eyes that said Korean. She looked up at him from her perch on the edge of the fountain - the same one he'd seen Kyle sitting on earlier, he realized - with her knees drawn up into an over sized jacket. Most of the other students are gone, she continued, and even so, not many people around here drive pickups. What colour's yours?  
  
Red. Well, it started out red. It's a bit faded and a little chipped at the moment.  
  
Why don't we help you look? she asked, rising. She pushed her dark hair away from her face, and he noticed that the jacket she was wearing said Falco' on the sleeve. I'm Sascha, she said, sticking her hand out. Sascha Cohen.  
  
He took it from beneath the too long sleeves, and she smiled at him. Samuel Guthrie. But Sam's just fine.  
  
she said as Kyle slipped an arm around her waist. Let's get you on the road.  
  
*  
  
How did it go?  
  
Sam stopped at the entrance to the living room at Hank's voice. The man was sitting in an easy chair, paper between his hands and reading glasses perched upon his nose. Your paper's upside down, Hank, Sam said, smiling.  
  
Oh. So it is, Hank remarked. Every man should be able to read a paper upside down. So. How did it go?  
  
It was great. It really was.  
  
  
  
No problems so far, if that's what you mean. It's the first day, so it's probably not that great an indication, but Ah glanced through the texts, and I think I'll be fine. The work that Xavier and Magneto gave me as part of my early training'll really come in handy, I think.  
  
And did you play nicely with the other children? Hank asked with a grin.  
  
Well, Ah wasn't going to tell yah about that fight in the sandbox, but now that you bring it up...  
  
He sighed. Really. You boys nowadays. Go straight to to your room.  
  
Sam grinned and bowed grandly, calling As you command, back over his shoulder as he thumped up the stairs.  
  
And ran into Bobby. Face-first momentum, a sudden eyeful of blue and then his face was firmly planted into the other man's shirt.  
  
Sam! How'd it go?  
  
Sam rubbed the bridge of his nose. he said faintly, rubbing some more. There was perfume in his nose and he felt his eyes start to water.  
  
Yeah, college is a blast, Bobby continued. Wait til the parties really get started.  
  
Sam looked up at him, shaking the last of whoever's perfume was ingrained into Bobby's shirt from his head.   
  
Bobby asked. Just because I was studying to be an accountant doesn't mean that I couldn't have fun...  
  
Yeah. That's right. Funny the things that you forgot. Or at at least the ones that slid around the edge of your awareness, that you knew but didn't really realize.   
  
Like Bobby, Bobby the accountant, went to school for four years. Look, I've got an early morning class tomorrow, so...  
  
Okay. There's some pizza left in the fridge if you're hungry. Might want to set some aside if you want to take it for lunch tomorrow, because I can't guarantee you how much'll make it through the night.  
  
Yeah, thanks. Just might do that. Ah had a sandwich today, but when Ah passed the cafeteria, it didn't look too promising.  
  
Cafeteria food's never great anywhere, but it's usually better than it looks. It's less expensive, though, to just grab something out of the fridge before you leave.  
  
Thanks again, Bobby. Like Ah said though, he said, gesturing up the stairs. Ah have an early class, so Ah should really dump my stuff and hit the hay.  
  
No problem. Look, congrats. Really. It's great that you're doing this.  
  
Yeah, thanks, Sam said as Bobby bounded down the stairs. Sam trailed his fingers along the bannister as he headed up to his room, the wood cool beneath his fingers.  
  
Bobby's odd cologne was still hanging in his head as he rounded the corner, only to get a face full of white and peach.  
  
Jesus! You scared me, Emma, he gasped. He was going to have to start paying more attention to where he was going. Emma's stilettos should have been LOUD on the hardwood.  
  
she said. On the first day of school.  
  
Yeah. Thanks. But Ah'm...  
  
Off to bed? she finished.   
  
he nodded. Early morning.  
  
Well, all the best.  
  
Yeah. Thanks.  
  
He headed down the hall towards his room, stopping only when she called his name. he asked as he turned back to face her.  
  
She smiled at him cryptically, her arms crossed in front of her. Don't let the bed bugs bite, she said, and turned and walked away.  



	3. Chapter 3

***  
The Karma Downs**  
**3/13**  
*  


  
  
  
For some reason, finishing his first week of classes without anything getting blown up gave Sam a great deal of hope for the future.  
  
He finished scribbling the last of his notes into his binder and joined the stream of students jostling towards the door, stopping to call to a few of the people he kind of/sort of knew. There was a strange sort of excitement hanging in the air, showing in people's strides.  
  
It made his feet itch.  
  
The sun was only beginning to give way to the encroaching night when he spilled out onto the green with the other students from his class. A girl with white and blonde hair stumbled into him, knocking him off balance as he caught her.   
  
she murmured as he set her back on her feet.  
  
He felt a thrill of recognition as she whipped her hair back out of her face, but it was gone even as she was, melting off into the shadows. He shook his head and shouldered his bag more firmly on his back, heading across the rapidly emptying green to where he'd parked his truck.  
  
At the very least, the week had taught him to keep track of his truck.  
  
Water, cold and wet and shocking, hit him upside the head and he spun in the direction he could only guess it had come from.  
  
Sascha sat on the edge of the fountain from before, shaking the water from her hands back over the pool. Hello to you too, she said cheerfully.  
  
he said, very coherently, wiping the water from the side of his face and rubbing his hands through his hair.  
  
It didn't seem as if you were going to stop and say hi, and I thought I'd get your attention.  
  
Why didn't yah just...  
  
Kyle asked with a grin, smiling wider as he realized that Sam had only just noticed him. Call your name? You didn't exactly notice the other day.  
  
A black girl was sitting on the ground beside them, her back against the stone fountain. She wiped flecks of water from the anatomy diagrams of the pages of the text she was reading and looked up at Sam, her eyebrow raised in a knowing, but very resigned way.  
  
This is Ange, by the way, Sascha said, gesturing towards her.   
  
She held her hand up towards him, and he shook it. Angela Evans, she said in a voice like velvet.  
  
Samuel Guthrie, he replied.  
  
You can have a seat, you know, Kyle said, waving a hand around. We don't bite.  
  
said Angela, with a significant look towards Sascha, not most of us, anyway.  
  
Sascha bared her teeth at the other girl and grinned. Ah, I don't bite *that* hard. Except Kyle, and I've had all my shots.  
  
Kyle tousled her hair at that, and she nipped at his hand as he snapped it away.  
  
Sam unslung his bag as he dropped to the fountain beside Angela. The stone was pleasantly cool, and water kicked up against his back every once and a while. He should have felt like an outsider as they talked and threw barbs at each other, but he didn't. He felt *comfortable,* really comfortable, and it had been a while since he felt that.  
  
It might have had something to do with the fact that if someone did happen to take offense to what another said, he didn't have to worry about finding cover.  
  
It was only when Sascha suddenly sat up straighter and asked what time it was that he realized how long he'd been there. Angela had closed her book a while ago, and as she now peered down at her watch she had to use the indiglo to see the face.  
  
she said. We only have about half an hour.  
  
The three of them were on their feet quickly, and Sam followed them up, bag in his hand, feeling a little bit lost. Sascha was shrugging into her jacket and saw the look on his face. We kind of wanted to see this girl who's singing at a club in a bit, she said. Friend of a friend kind of thing. Her sister's in my media course, and I told her we'd go because she couldn't be there. A bit of a support group for after the show.  
  
Kyle stopped, running a hand through his dark hair. You want to come? he asked.  
  
Ah don't know... Sam said, not wanting to intrude but discovering that he wasn't quite ready to head back to the mansion yet.  
  
You can fit in Kyle's car with us, Sascha said. There's plenty of room.  
  
But mah truck...   
  
You have your parking permit stuck on the windshield, right? she asked. Campus security will leave it alone. We can give you a lift back after or you can catch a cab.  
  
Sam still hesitated. He should get back to the mansion before someone started to worry about him.  
  
Come on, she said. It'll be fun.  
  
It'll give you a chance to get to know the city a bit more, outside of the campus, Kyle added.  
  
Sam nodded then, a feeling of finality bubbling up from somewhere as he drawled, He shook it away, falling in beside the others as they headed for the same parking lot that held his truck. They started to dash when the wind hit them, because it was getting cold, and Angela didn't have a jacket with her.   
  
They stopped at a twenty year old Chevy that was trying its hardest to be a sports car, paint chipped and faded pale black, and Kyle unlocked the doors. Sam followed Angela into the back seat as she slid across the bench, the wind trying to tear the car door from his hands. He got it closed as Angela pulled a sweater from the rear window and over her head. Sascha flicked the radio on and as they pulled out of the lot the car thrummed with bass, the green light of the displays bright.  
  
He remembered the cell phone then, tucked into the bag that sat between his feet. Scott and Jean had given it to him a bit after they'd found out he'd been accepted into the university. Means of contact, he supposed, and one that was less conspicuous than a talking pin or belt buckle. Also one that didn't require his wearing a pin or belt with a huge buckle.  
  
The line was busy, so he left a brief message on the voicemail, just saying that he'd be out for a bit. He didn't say when he'd be back.  
  
He really didn't feel like heading back quite yet.  
  
Angela was looking at him when he slid the phone back into his pack, her eyes appraising, and he was left with the feeling that she was looking right through him, right into him. You don't live with your parents, do you? she asked. Her dark face was almost obscured in the shadows.  
  
He thought of his family. Thought of Paige, off in the forests. Thought of how he'd left the last time he'd gone home. Had it only been a couple of months ago? He thought of Scott and Jean, fighting, of Logan, Bobby, Emma, Hank, and how there always seemed something *off* lately.  
  
He wondered when he'd go home again.  
  
And he wondered what home was.  
  
he said. I don't.  
  
He left it at that, and though he could read in her eyes that she wanted to know more, she just nodded.  
  
They had to park a couple of blocks back from the club in the end, and they ran wildly down the empty sidewalk, hair and jackets trailing behind them. The club was small and dim, round tables crowded closely in the hanging smoke, a simple spot light shining on a stage on the back wall. They managed to snag a table near the back, and Sascha ordered them a basket of buffalo wings and a pitcher of Coke, which arrived as the light dimmed further for first of the three acts of the night.   
  
Sarah's up last, Sascha told him just before the band started to play. They were decent, and the one that came after them was good, especially the guitarist. By the pause before the last show, the four of them had gone through another basket of buffalo wings and a platter of nachos.   
  
The lights came up again, and Sascha placed her fingers in her mouth and whistled while Kyle and Angela clapped loudly. Sam clapped too, feeling a little uncomfortable.  
  
The girl on the stage was about the same age as they were, with curly brown hair. She raised her microphone above her head, and looked up and smiled. Her features were more strong than beautiful, but Sam was left with the feeling that she was smiling just at him. Looking around, he suspected that the rest of the room felt the same way. Her voice was much the same as her face, more strong or striking than beautiful, but she knew how to perform. She was dressed for it, and she moved for it. There were a couple of times when she was a little off key, but she recovered. It was all about the show for her, and she enjoyed it, and that was exactly what the audience saw.   
  
The applause at the end was heartfelt, and this time when he joined in Sam didn't feel out of place. She bowed once, deeply, grinned out at the crowd, and waved as she strode off the stage like she owned the place.  
  
She arrived at their table a while later, as they were finishing off the last of the pop. She was dressed only slightly more sedately, her hair thrown into a messy ponytail. What'd you think? she asked, grinning and doing a little dance.  
  
Sascha flashed her the thumbs up and Kyle and Angela raised their glasses to her before draining the last of the Coke from them.   
  
Good show, Sam ventured, and though he knew that she'd noticed him before he spoke, she grinned wider at him.   
  
she said, leaning on the table. And who might you be?  
  
This is Sam, Sascha said. Kyle found him wandering the campus his first day, and took pity on him. We decided to keep him.  
  
she said, nodding. She looked him over once again and nodded in approval. Sam felt himself blush a little bit, and she laughed. It wasn't a nasty laugh, and he felt himself grin in return. Thanks for coming, she said as she pulled a battered pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her coat. I know my sister hooked you into it, but I appreciate it all the same. She paused with her lighter raised part way to her mouth and quickly pocketed it. I know I should quit.  
  
Sam thought of the various images Hank had shown them and shuddered a bit. He must have nodded emphatically because Sarah laughed at him.  
  
Keep him, she said, zipping up her jacket. He's cute. But I gotta shove off.  
  
Sascha said.   
  
Sam waved as she turned and headed for the door. he said. The club appeared to be clearing out.  
  
You guys want to hit The Cuppa? Sasha asked. Kyle and Angela nodded.  
  
The Cuppa? Sam asked.  
  
Bar and grille type place. They've got some of the best whiskey in town, and the best pizza you'll find at a bar. Kyle's older brother works there part time, and he makes a mean grasshopper.  
  
Sam asked.  
  
Sascha smiled at him again. How bout we just show you?  
  
*  
  
Sam stared.  
  
It started as a pool hall, Angela explained to him as Kyle and Sascha hit the bar. The bartender seemed to know them.   
  
Sam stood and stared.  
  
It was split level. A couple of pool tables sat in the upper half, a couple of foozball and air hockey tables, and a few pinball and video games mixed among them. Television sets in each corner of the huge room were set to different channels. There was relatively little smoke, and a pizza oven in one corner. Booths were littered around. Almost as much food as alcohol was passing over the counter.  
  
After it was a pool hall, it was an Irish bar, Angela continued. After that, it went through a variety of hands. The current management just kind of kept the best of each owner.  
  
He could believe that. It was mixed up, mismatched, and jumbled. But it seemed to have a comfortable air around it, something warm, and he thought that he could get to like it here. He'd never been as fond of Harry's, back in Salem Center, as the others had. It just hadn't been his type of place. Sure, you could strike up a conversation with someone you didn't know, but you were as likely to get everything above your third vertebrae taken off as make a new friend, and the knock-down dragouts got on your nerves after a time.  
  
The others returned, bearing drinks, and he shook his head and stepped towards them. Kyle handed him a bottle of beer, and he took it and twisted the cap off absently.   
  
Eddie, my brother, isn't on tonight. So you just get a beer, Kyle said.  
  
He took a swallow of it before realizing something rather important. Ah have to drive home tonight, Sam said, dropping the bottle to his side. Ah can't exactly take a cab back to Westchester.  
  
Sascha looked at him again, then turning to the bar to check the clock. It's after midnight already, she said with a frown. It's a couple hours back to Westchester, isn't it?  
  
He nodded. Ah should probably go.  
  
Do you have a morning class? She asked him.  
  
Tomorrow's Saturday, he reminded her.  
  
Ah. Well then, there's no reason for you to hurry home. She thought for a second, then poked Kyle in the side. Kyle's got an apartment. Don't you, Kyle?  
  
Kyle asked. Yeah, I've got a place. So?  
  
Sascha said. He can stay the night, right? The man just finished his first week of university courses. You wouldn't want him to have to not drink at all, just because he lives out of town, now would you?  
  
Ah wouldn't want to presume, Sam protested.   
  
Kyle shook his head. Hey, as long as you don't mind sleeping on the couch, it's all good. You'd be surprised at the number of people who crash at my place. I don't mind.  
  
You're sure yah don't mind? Sam asked again.   
  
Sascha sighed. He doesn't mind. He just said so a couple of times. Now, are we going to have a good time, or what?  
  
Sam grinned and took another slug of his beer. He considered calling the mansion, but figured that he'd wake someone.  
  
He was a big boy.  
  
He could take care of himself.  
  
They commandeered a booth, the overhead lights reflecting dully off of the scratched surface of the table. They talked about nothing and everything, and he felt guilty for having to play his cards so close to his chest. There was something in it, though, that made him feel like he should make up for it by learning as much about the others as he could.  
  
I've never been to Korea, Sascha said later, when he'd asked her about her family, about Korea. Wondering what it was like outside of his field of vision. My parents immigrated while Mother was pregnant with me, and we could never quite find the time to go back while I was in school. There was one time we almost made it, but my brother came down with mono, and we had to cancel. She paused then, staring into her drink. He's a lawyer now. I might go there some day, but I'll probably never see Korea with my family now.  
  
Sam asked, and someone kicked him in the shin under the table.   
  
She smiled, but it was bitter, and she took another chug of her drink. I'm studying to be a journalist. They don't approved. Too risky, they think. They don't like that I'm studying liberal arts. A waste of money.  
  
Sam rubbed his shin under the table. Ah'm sorry, he said.  
  
Why? It's not anything that you did.  
  
For bringing it up, I mean. He paused. Ah don't know when I can go home, either.  
  
In the morning? Sascha asked, coldly.   
  
Ah don't live at home, he said. Ah live... Well, it's complicated. But home used to be Kentucky, and I don't know if it is anymore, or how welcome I am. Some things... Some things got said that can't be unsaid.  
  
You really can't go home again, Angela said, and though her voice was jovial, her eyes were a little desperate. There was a bit of a ghetto speech pattern that came out in her voice when she was excited or stressed.  
  
Kyle said with a wicked smile. Sam, here, you're the minority. Corn fed white boy. We've got you outnumbered. It had nothing to do with anything, and it wasn't meant to, but it did get them laughing.  
  
Sam felt his eyes drift over the pub, taking in the rise and swell of the movement of people. There was a girl with white and blonde hair sitting at the bar, and he found himself watching her. Her hair spilled easily down her back, the movement hypnotising.  
  
Hey! Earth to Sam! Someone was snapping their fingers by his ears, and he shook his head.   
  
You really do zone out a lot, don't you? Kyle asked.  
  
Sorry. There was just... He faltered. There was just this girl? he thought wryly. That wasn't lame at all.  
  
There was just this girl? Angela asked.  
  
Yeah, actually.  
  
Go talk to her, Sascha said. We don't mind.  
  
Kyle grinned. We promise to still be here when you get back.  
  
Ah don't know...  
  
And you won't, if you don't go talk to her, Angela said.  
  
Oh, all right, Sam said as he rose, brushing his hair back.  
  
She wasn't sitting at the bar anymore. In the few seconds since he'd torn his eyes off of her, she'd vanished. He scanned the bar, and was about to admit defeat and return to the booth when he caught a flash of white and yellow from up amongst the pool tables. He made his way up the stairs, looking for another glimpse of her.  
  
She was bent over a pool table, and as he looked she banked the cue ball off the side and knocked a red ball into the corner pocket. She stood, moved to the other side of the table, and he was struck with a sense of familiarity. He watched as another ball shot into a pocket, then another, and she stopped, leaning on her pool cue and looking at him. she said. Something particularly interesting about the way I play?  
  
He blushed a little bit. You're good, he said. Ah can barely make the white ball do what Ah want, let alone make the ball it hits do what Ah want.   
  
She nodded then, tossing her hair back over the shoulder of her red tank, and she smiled a bit. Her hair wasn't really white and blonde, he thought. It seemed almost gold, but that could have been the contrast. It was unusual, yet strangely familiar.  
  
Ah'm sorry, he said. But have we met before?  
  
She raised an eyebrow at him. That one's gotten old. Try again.  
  
he said. I'm Sam. What's your name?  
  
She leaned over the pool table again, sinking another ball. Would you believe it's Shard? She asked, glancing up at him with startlingly bright eyes as she moved to the next ball.   
  
Is it?  
  
she said as another ball disappeared.  
  
I think I figured it out, he said.  
  
My name? she asked as she sunk another ball. That would be quite a trick.  
  
No. Why you seem familiar.  
  
  
  
Four more balls left.  
  
Yeah. You bumped inta me on campus this afternoon.  
  
She paused, stood up and looked at him again. So I did, she said after a time, and there was something strange in her voice. She leaned back down, sunk another ball. Three balls left. Sorry about that.  
  
It's all right. No harm done.  
  
Two balls left. He leaned back against another table as one disappeared, then the other. She dropped the cue on the table, and stood and looked at him. she said with a nod. My name is Grace.  
  
Pleased tah meet you, Grace. Would you care for a drink?   
  
She smiled at him then, really smiled. Why, yes I would.  
  
And as they headed back down to the bar, that feeling from that afternoon, the one of finality, of a door closing, of a road changing, came back to him, and this time he couldn't shake it.  



	4. Chapter 4

***  
The Karma Downs**  
**4/13  
*  
**  


  
  
  
Bobby looked up as Sam stuck his head in through his door.  
  
he said absently, tugging at the hem of his wife beater.  
  
Bobby said, flipping his book closed and dropping it to his bed. The hardcover made a nice, satisfying snap. You okay?  
  
Ah'm fine. Why do you ask?  
  
Bobby looked at him again. Sam usually wore an abstracted, vaguely happy expression. At the moment, he was trying to look abstracted and vaguely happy. It would have worked, except that in comparison, this expression just looked fake. No particular reason, he said. Just wondered why you were here.  
  
Oh. Right. He paused. Ah don't suppose you have any nice clothes? Not real fancy or anything. Just... nice.  
  
I might, he said as he rose, padding across the carpet in his bare feet to his closet. He pulled a short sleeved, button up shirt from a hanger and tossed it to Sam. That do? he asked.  
  
Sam nodded and slipped it on, peered at himself in the mirror. He'd definitely spent more time on his hair, Bobby noted. And he was wearing good shoes.  
  
Sam's got a girlfriend? Bobby asked, grinning.   
  
Sam's hands paused in adjusting the collar. he said shortly, and ran his hand through his hair again.  
  
Sam's got a boyfriend, then? Bobby asked, stepping back to observe his teammate.  
  
  
  
Pet goat?  
  
  
  
He grinned.  
  
Ah have a friend who happens to be a girl. Or she could be a friend, anyways, Sam said. Honestly, Ah like her. Ah do. But things are complicated enough, with school and the X-Men. Even just keeping friends is hard, because Ah have to keep track of what it is about me that Ah've told them that's real. He paused. he asked, peering into the still open closet.  
  
  
  
Can Ah ask you something?  
  
You already have.  
  
Can Ah ask you something else?  
  
Go ahead.  
  
Sam shook his head a bit. You been shopping lately?  
  
A little while ago. Why?  
  
Oh. No reason. It's nothing.  
  
*  
  
Sam shook his head a bit. It was just *wrong*, somehow. He's been dressing a bit differently, but it didn't really hit me until Ah saw his closet. It looked like some one who didn't really know him took him shopping and dressed him up.  
  
You have someone in mind, I take it, Angela said. They were sitting at a table at the back of the Cuppa, the warmth of other voices wrapping easily around them.  
  
Kind of.  
  
She raised one dark eyebrow at him.  
  
There's this woman...  
  
Trust a woman to corrupt a man, she said. Men do tend to do just as much corrupting, you know.  
  
I've known her for awhile. Never well, but I've had dealings with her for years. She's... She's not good for him.  
  
So she's more experienced? Let me guess. She's successful, knows what she wants, and doesn't take bull from anyone.  
  
Sam said, and as Angela nodded he felt himself blush a bit. She plays with people! And every time you think that she's changed, she turns around and destroys any trust you've managed to place in her.  
  
she sighed. You did say that you've never gotten to know her very well.  
  
And Ah don't want to.  
  
Fine. That's your prerogative. Look, I don't know either of them, so I can't really give you advice, but I'd say get to really know her before you go around deciding if she's the type for your friend.  
  
he muttered, half under his breath. Ah don't seem to have any trouble wearing the clothes Ah think that she picked out.  
  
Do you even know she picked them out? she asked. Maybe he just wanted a change.  
  
Ah don't know if she'd take him shopping. He plucked moodily at the buttons on his shirt. It wouldn't be so bad if she did. Ah just wonder... Maybe he went shopping himself, for her. Ah don't like that thought.  
  
It's a nice shirt, though, Angela said. What's the occasion?  
  
Nothing, really. Ah just felt like looking nice today.  
  
He was greeted with a raised eyebrow This doesn't have anything to do with a certain blonde tidbit named Grace, by any chance?  
  
Sam sighed. No. You're not the first person I've had to say that to, either. Why does everyone think that...  
  
Is that her over there? she asked, pointing.  
  
Very funny, Angela. I'm not going to fall for that one.  
  
No, it's definitely her.  
  
Sam sipped his drink and continued to gaze at her steadily. I'm not going to look. You can give it up now.  
  
Angela said with a shrug. Your loss.  
  
Really, aren't you a bit old for this game?  
  
Angela fought back a grin.  
  
Sam paused. She's standing right behind me, isn't she?  
  
Hey, you guys mind if I join you?  
  
Sam sighed and scooted his chair over. Grace pulled a chair from the table beside them, and dropped down.  
  
It was going to be one of those nights.  
  
What's up? Grace asked, and Sam found himself wondering why, since he'd decided it wasn't even an option, he found himself fighting the impulse to adjust his shirt. And his hair. And his...  
  
He realized that everyone was looking at him expectantly. Question, he thought. Three hundred forty-seven? he squeaked. Oooh. Smooth. Mental smack.  
  
They laughed, but it was an easy laugh, and he felt himself joining in.   
  
Grace said. Three hundred forty seven certainly is a large number, so it could be up...  
  
He blushed a bit. Sorry. Wasn't paying proper attention.  
  
What's up? She asked.  
  
He'd heard her ask that, too. Nothing much, he said. There's a chemistry course I'm taking that's kind of interesting. Actual lab work and all.  
  
She nodded. Chemistry's okay. I always liked chaos theory better, though. Something fascinating about the way that nothing's really random. Everything, every encounter, can be traced back to a series of unrelated, seemingly innocuous events. A butterfly flapping its wings in Malaysia can cause a tornado in Kansas.  
  
Kinda like... he started. Stopped. Kinda like how the people that attacked the team had their own reasons? Not necessarily ones that made much sense to them, and certainly not ones that they, as the defensive party, were sympathetic to, but reasons all the same. People rarely just got up in the morning and thought Hmm. it's been awhile since I went after the X-Men,' despite popular opinion. Kinda like your dropping your watch in a cab? he groped. So the cabbie's late and doesn't pick up the next person in time. That person misses their job interview, and loses the opening because of it. Then, ten years down the road, they end up mugging your sister for her pocket change, he finished weakly.  
  
Angela blinked. Grace patted him on the shoulder. Something like that, she said.  
  
Angela checked her watch. You guys want to catch a movie? she asked.   
  
Grace said, and Sam found himself agreeing very quickly.  
  
Sascha and Kyle's hasn't started yet, Angela said, smiling innocently. If, perhaps, some popcorn happened to get thrown at them from the back of the theatre, we wouldn't know anything about, would we?  
  
Sam looked down at his barely touched drink. Ah'm good to drive, he said.  
  
Me too, Angela said as she finished off her coke. I'll drive if you want, Sam.  
  
he replied. I should head back out to Westchester after it's over. I have some stuff to do in the morning. Saturday training. Always fun. Even more fun if you happened to be hung over. Although, if you happened to be the only one who *wasn't* hung over...  
  
I'll drive anyway, then. I can take Grace home after, she said with a nod of her head.  
  
Sounds like a plan.  
  
Grace snagged Sam's drink with a grin. I'll look after this for you.  
  
We should grab some tickets, Angela said, looking at her watch again. How about I head down and buy them? You guys follow when you're ready.  
  
Sam nodded. Fine by me. He paused and turned to Grace. Do yah know the way to the theatre?  
  
In my sleep, she told him over top of what had previously been his drink.  
  
Angela gathered up her jacket and headed out the door. What movie are we going to see anyway? Grace asked, taking a drink.  
  
Ah... Ah'm not really sure, Sam said. Angela knows which one. He paused. Ah hope.  
  
Spiderman's still there? she asked.  
  
Ah think so. It seems like something Sascha and Kyle would pick. Why? You want to see?  
  
I like super hero movies, Grace said. Just a slice of the life.  
  
Ready to go? Sam asked. He wasn't quite ready to get into a discussion on spandex squads.  
  
She nodded, drained the glass.   
  
It was windy outside, and his truck was parked down the block, so he dropped his jean jacket over her thin red shirt. she said, and shrugged into it gratefully. It was dark out, and as they drove they passed through the pools provided by the streetlights, flickering between night and light. He saw her face come in and out of shadow out of the corner of his eyes, disappearing even as they talked. Turn left here, she said finally, and they swung around onto a crowded street.   
  
No parking, he observed.  
  
Keep going. There's usually some just down the street.  
  
He found a spot eventually, pulling in just in front of a man in an SUV who leaned on his horn. When that didn't work, he gave them a true New York salute before continuing along his way.  
  
Grace giggled. Horns sure do move vehicles, she gasped. I mean, all that beeping. Enough to clear any parking spot.  
  
And that finger sure did scare me, Sam laughed. Ah felt like vacating right away, just so that it wouldn't get me.  
  
She laughed again, raising her hands to hide her smile. He reached out, pulled them down. Yah don't have to hide when you're laughing, he said. Her face stilled, and he thought that her eyes were a bit overbright. A gust of wind made its way through the crack at the top of the window, carrying the smell of popcorn and yellow light. Strands of her hair rose up, electric, dancing, and he leaned forward and kissed her.  
  
She kissed him back, at first. Leaned into him and kissed him hard. Like an automatic reflex, a knee-jerk reaction, but then she pulled back, pulled away. She braced her hands on the dashboard and hung her head.  
  
Ah'm sorry, Sam said, giving himself a mental kick. Ah shouldn't have done that.   
  
She shook her head.   
  
Ah really am sorry, Sam said. Ah just misread it, is all.  
  
She shook her head again, and turned to look at him. You didn't misread me, Sam. That's part of the problem.  
  
Ah don't understand.  
  
Look, just... I can't do this. Not now. Not with someone as nice as you.  
  
He nodded.  
  
You still don't understand.  
  
It's okay. You don't need to explain it if yah don't want to. This isn't a good time for me, either.  
  
She shook her head again, trying to deny something, trying to shake it off. I'm sorry, she said.  
  
Come on, Sam said, getting out of the truck. Let's go see that movie. Throwing popcorn at Kyle and Sascha will make it all better.  
  
*  
  
~{ [Relax] she says, the words almost lost as she presses her lips to his stomach.  
  
What you're doing isn't exactly conducive to relaxation, he wants to say, but then maybe she'd stop.  
  
Soft laughter in his head at that. //You want me to stop?// she asks, teeth grazing his skin.  
  
The rush of his thoughts must confirm his negative before he can put together an actual response, because the laughter tinkles through his head again, and she continues her ministrations.  
  
Telepathy is a wonderful thing, he thinks. One of those uses that he'd never considered before. One lots of people didn't consider. You can still talk with your mouth busy.  
  
He's not going to let his thoughts get sidetracked, but she pushes at them a bit, curious as to where they lead.  
  
//I told you before// she tells him when she's found the source. //I see. I notice. You'll just have to show them. They'll have to see that you're something more.//  
  
//How?// he wonders. Her hands move down, deftly unbuckling his belt. Her mouth follows.  
  
//Show me first// she tells him. [Show me all you are,] she says, whispering the words against his skin. }~  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

*  
**The Karma Downs**  
**5/13**  
*  


  
  
  
Much to Sam's chagrin, he hadn't been the only one not hung over. Bobby and Jean were bright eyed. Hank and Logan were bushy-tailed. Emma was... Emma.  
  
Scott appeared suddenly at Sam's elbow. Good morning troops, he called. Isn't it a beautiful morning?  
  
I don't quite like the way he's smiling, said Emma.  
  
We're going to be training one on one today, Scott said, dropping a folder to the desk. You can all head out. I'll call you when it's your turn.  
  
Bobby groaned. It's going to be one of *those*, isn't it? he muttered as he headed out the door.  
  
Bobby. Why don't you go first? Scott asked.  
  
Well actually, I'd rather not.  
  
I only asked to be polite. Suit up and hit the Danger Room.  
  
he said curtly as he exited the room. I'll be there in ten, oh fearless leader.  
  
I don't understand what's gotten into him lately, Scott said, shaking his head.  
  
Emma flicked an imaginary piece of lint off of one of her long gloves. Sam could have sworn he saw her grin at the phrase. She glanced up at him and smiled lazily, and her eyes whispered through heavy lashes.  
  
He told himself that he only got out of there so quickly because he had homework to do.  
  
Sprawled across his bed with his calculus books spread before him, he tried to concentrate. He really did. But Grace's face kept forcing itself at random onto the pages. He really had to learn when the time was to not do things. No matter what she said, it was him, at least partially, because this was not a good time for it. He should be thanking her, really. Because this wasn't a good time. He wasn't sure when a good time *would* be, but this certainly wasn't it.   
  
Scott and Jean were falling apart, and as much as that didn't say anything about him, it certainly said something about the toll their lifestyle took, even when both involved were actually involved with the whole super hero scene. He wasn't particularly close to either one of them, but they'd been constant. The one reminder that sometimes, things held together, especially with enough super glue.  
  
He was thinking about them like they were all ready done with. Never a good sign.  
  
But, when you thought about it, the odds were just about perfect that the next relationship someone got into would work out. He was taking a class on statistics, and they were well over due for something to work out. So, maybe, Grace...  
  
He gave himself a shake. Face it, that little voice said. You're falling for her.  
  
Not a good idea. For him, or, by the looks of it, for her.  
  
The com station on his nightstand crackled. Scott's voice asked.   
  
He rolled over and hit the reply button.   
  
Your turn.  
  
Ah'll be right down. He left his books open on his bed. Maybe he'd actually get something done later.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, he found himself standing alone in the Danger Room. He looked up at Scott, standing in the observation booth. So you're not going to tell me who Ah'm up against?  
  
  
  
But they'll know that they're hunting me? As in *me*, in particular.  
  
  
  
That somehow doesn't seem very fair...  
  
Scott smiled, and Sam wasn't sure that he liked it. It may not be fair, but it's much more likely to happen than your going up against half of your team.  
  
Sam thought about body-swapping, possession, and the Shadow King, and he said nothing. Scott nodded at him, then darkened the glass, leaving him feeling rather isolated. The room was set to a jungle. He took a quick look around, checking for any obvious flashes of blue fur, red hair, or white leather.   
  
His teammates tended to not be best equipped for hiding.  
  
Seeing nothing, he blasted up into the canopy. He'd hoped to get above, where no one could drop back down on him, but the branches were too thick. He crouched on a branch of the first level, making his way back into the cover of leaves. Settling himself where he had a good view, he waited. Somewhere an animal howled, and he felt himself shiver slightly in the muggy air.  
  
He pressed himself farther back into the vines and leaves. His mind slowly wandered as time passed, despite his best efforts to keep it here. He'd been assuming one of the variables, he realized suddenly. In calculus. It had been the same in all the previous question, so he'd assumed it had carried through. Only it hadn't, so that would change the entire equation.  
  
~Rock-a-bye-babie, in the tree top...~  
  
He started. Jumped a little bit, and looked around for the source. It hadn't been any voice that he knew. It was vaguely unsettling, sing-songy.  
  
The forest noises had fallen silent, he realized suddenly. Or, in the immortal words of someone else: It was quiet. Too quiet.  
  
He caught a flash of white in the canopy above him as he tried to scramble to his feet. His boot caught on the bark and he staggered. Something incredibly hard knocked into him from the side, and he found himself suddenly hurtling towards the ground. He blasted, trying to adjust, only to find that it wasn't enough because there were hands fastened firmly to his shoulders.  
  
He looked back frantically, caught a glimpse of diamond. Emma. Good. He hadn't burnt her. He blasted once more, just before they hit the ground. The smell of burning green was strong. He rolled when he hit the ground, breaking free and trying to get back up into the air, but all he succeeded in doing was sending himself sideways. His arm caught in some vines and he thought he heard a pop. A sudden numbness spread down across his chest and he hit the ground hard.   
  
He shook his head, trying to get his orientation, and there was a thud on either side of his body. A weight settled onto his chest. He blinked, trying to get the world to stop spinning, and Emma snapped into focus.   
  
They'd made a bit of a hole in the canopy and some sunlight filtered down, glittering oddly off her diamond form.  
  
he breathed, and realized that she was the weight on his chest. She had her razor sharp fingers at his throat.   
  
One kill for me, she whispered as she leaned forward. Game over. She planted a kiss on his forehead, diamond cold against his skin, then stood up. Her hair chimed as she swung it back over her shoulders, and the jungle faded from around them.   
  
She faded back to flesh and blood. Started to say something, then paused. Scott was looking down on them again, the expression on his face rather odd, and Sam felt himself flush.   
  
Are you all right, Sam? he called.  
  
Ah'm fine, he replied hotly. Ah can handle myself.  
  
There was a pause. That arm looks pretty bad, he said.  
  
Sam looked over at his arm, lying at a rather odd angle by his side, and the numbness evaporated. he said weakly. That. Maybe Ah could use a bit of a hand. Especially as mine doesn't look like it'll be much use.  
  
*  
  
Hank said, this is going to hurt some, I'm afraid.  
  
His paws were gentle, the fur soft against his skin, and Sam nodded. Ah'm ready.  
  
Hank's paws suddenly tightened and he pushed. There was a sudden blast of pain and Sam felt the world spin. He gritted his teeth and it slowly subsided.  
  
Hank said, brushing off his paws, I want you to go easy on it. Take a couple of aspirin. No training for at least a week, and it would probably be best if you were to wear a sling for a few days. It's not that bad, no significant tissue damage, but you could very easily make it much worse.  
  
Sam nodded. He was just glad that it was his left arm. It was bad enough, the way he'd been taken down, but for it to mess with everything else he did would have been a bit too much. He let Hank take the X-Rays, or whatever it was he was doing for his records, then he climbed down off of the table, and gingerly pulled his shirt back over his head. he said, but Hank was already absorbed in something underneath one of his many microscopes.  
  
He was part way up to his room when he realized that he'd left his street clothes back in the change room. He sighed, turned around, and headed back. He ran the simulation over in his head as he walked. He should have kept his mind there and a closer eye on the canopy above him. He should have been able to correct his trajectory more quickly. He should have realized that there was still someone hanging onto him before he blasted. If it hadn't been Emma... If it had been someone he could have burned... He should have, he should have, he should have...  
  
He ground to a halt. He should have realized that there were *people* in the change room. Bobby and Emma, to be precise. Talking in fierce whispers. He stood frozen for an instant. Bobby was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his hands in his hair. One of his boots was sitting beside him on the bench, and the other was lying haphazard beneath a large, fresh-looking dent in the lockers. Emma was standing beside him, looking rather queenly.   
  
He backpedalled quickly, but neither of them seemed to have seen him, and Emma didn't look to have sensed his presence. She had a hand on Bobby's back, and if Sam hadn't seen him move, then he would have thought that she was pushing him.   
  
Sam turned quickly and walked away with a vague sense of unease.  
  
After one (disastrous) attempt at cooking lunch, an hour and a half of watching whatever channel whomever happened to be currently in control of the remote flipped the TV to, what seemed like an eternity of doing nothing at all, four or five aspirin, and two or three more failed attempts at his course work, he finally dumped his books back in his bag. He kicked the bag into his closet for good measure. His arm still hurt like a bugger, but moping wasn't going to do anything about it.  
  
He picked up the phone and dialled Kyle's number.   
  
a breathy voice answered. Have you been a baaaad boy?  
  
Sam stammered.  
  
I know just what to do with bad boys, the voice continued, then paused. Oh, I'm just messing with them! It called, and Sam recognized it as belonging to Sascha.  
  
He groaned.   
  
She asked.  
  
he said. It's me.  
  
It's Sam! she called, voice partially muffled. You want to talk to Kyle? she asked.  
  
He shrugged, then realized that she couldn't see him.  
  
He was really going to have to start adjusting to the lack of video links. You'll do.  
  
I'll do, huh? he could hear the grin in her voice. Kyle's got a maestro, she said. You have a blocker. I always tend to figure that the people who need to block who they are have no good reason to be calling here.  
  
What about the people who need to know who it is before they pick up the phone?  
  
Best way of screening out telemarketers.  
  
he replied sagely.  
  
What's up? she asked.  
  
Nothing much. He paused. Nothing at all, really. I guess I was just wondering if you guys wanted to do something.  
  
she said. If you don't just mind hanging around. Ange is coming over, actually. Kyle's making pizza dough, then we're all putting together our own pizzas. It's the only way we can all get what we want. You in?  
  
he said with a grin. As long as I don't have to throw my own dough. I had a bit of an accident today.  
  
You okay?  
  
Yeah, Ah'll be fine. Dislocated my shoulder a bit. It's starting to feel better.  
  
Jesus. How'd you do it?  
  
It's a pretty long story, actually. Long, and embarrassing for me. Suffice it to say that Ah fell out of a tree.  
  
He could hear her fighting back a laugh, and he really didn't mind. She covered the receiver partially again and he vaguely hear her call Yo! Kyle! Throw some more flour in there. Sam's coming over.  
  
There was a pause, and Kyle's voice came over the receiver. You have any pineapple? Sascha's a pineapple freak, but I refuse to keep the stuff in my place.  
  
Ah'm pretty sure Ah can dig some up, he said.  
  
Kyle said. He paused. Look, I'll see you in a bit. I need to get back to my dough.  
  
Yeah. See you. He heard Sascha call good bye at the phone before her boyfriend hung up.  
  
He was pretty sure that there was a can of pineapple somewhere in the cupboards. Ororo had loved the stuff, and with the size of their shelves, there had to be some left. He'd been digging through the kitchen cupboards one-handed for about ten minutes before he found some. he exclaimed, turned, and promptly smacked himself on the cupboard door.   
  
Someone laughed, and he turned to see Bobby leaning against the door from the living room. Find what you're looking for? he asked.  
  
Sam brandished his can proudly. Sure did.  
  
Bobby laughed again. The rest of us are heading down to Harry's. You want to come?  
  
Naw. I've got plans. But thanks anyways.  
  
Bobby raised an eyebrow. He looked a lot calmer than he had before, and Sam noticed that he was wearing pressed slacks, and shoes that definitely weren't sneakers.   
  
Plans involving a can of pineapple? Bobby asked, and there was something in his voice that Sam didn't like.  
  
Sam said. Pineapple is very useful. He found himself pondering the use of a can of it as a projectile weapon. He closed the cupboard door and headed for the exit.   
  
Bobby didn't move.   
  
said Sam, keeping his voice pleasant, if you'll excuse me, Ah have someplace Ah need to be.  
  
Bobby stepped aside, help his arms out grandly. Be my guest.  
  
Thank you, Sam said, and decided that a can of pineapple wouldn't make a very good throwing object. Too great a chance of missing.  
  
*  
  
~{ He's flushed and her lips are cool. He shivers. She raises her head back up to his and kisses him. She's iced lemonade on a hot summer's day. He needs to drink her all down.  
  
The bruises on his body are the only place that he's not burning. Her fingers dance down his sides, and when they find the sore spots, he hisses.  
  
She pulls back from him at that and frowns. Her fingers curl around the collar of his shirt and she deftly undoes each button and pulls the fabric away from his body. It sticks to his skin. Her eyes flicker at the sight of the rising bruises painted across his skin, and she kisses each one.   
  
Her mind flitters sympathy at him. [This morning?] she asks as she rests her chin against his collar bone. It's not really a question. He nods anyway.  
  
[You shouldn't let him treat you like that,] she says, and nuzzles his neck.   
  
[He *is* team leader,] he replies.  
  
[So?] She pulls away from her ministrations.  
  
[He has the right. In fact, it's kind of in his job description.]  
  
She sighs. [He doesn't order Jean like that. Or Hank. He'd have some respect for them.]  
  
His first impulse is to blindly deny it. To tell her that they are all treated equally. He opens his mouth to do it, and she rolls off of him. He realizes that he must have been broadcasting it.  
  
His first impulse was to completely deny it. Scott has so much of a stick up his ass that he'd have a hard time treating someone differently who hadn't done something to deserve it.  
  
But...  
  
Scott *doesn't* treat him the same. He's been around for as long as their fearless leader, but that doesn't seem to matter.  
  
[You want me to talk to him?] she asks, hands clasped across her stomach.  
  
//NO// he thinks at her, emphatically. If she has to talk to him for him, then he really does deserve that treatment. [I'll handle it myself,] he says outloud.  
  
She smiles, and he's not sure if he likes the look in her eyes.  
  
But she hooks a leg around one of his and pulls herself on top of him, and he soon forgets any reservations that he may have had, and all that's left is what's been said.}~  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

*  
**The Karma Downs**  
**6/13**  
*  


  
  
I loooove rock and roll, Kyle almost managed to sing as he draped an arm around Sam's shoulder.  
  
Put another dime in the jukebox baby! Sascha called from underneath Kyle's other arm. She had one arm threaded through Angela's, and none of them were looking all that stable. Someone stumbled, almost bringing down the entire chain, and Sam reached frantically for Grace. She laughed and steadied him.  
  
He was suddenly rather aware that he had an arm wrapped around her waist, but she didn't seem to notice. She looked over at him and smiled, and he thought that maybe she had noticed after all. Her eyes were a little wild, but she didn't pull away.  
  
Thunder threatened, lightning illuminating the night sky, throwing everything into sharp relief.   
  
Sascha screeched as the first of the rain hit her, breaking the last of the formerly beautiful day. They started to run, heads down against the gusts. The lightning came again, and Sam felt as if he'd been struck. There was electricity running through his veins instead of blood, and a steady pulse in the back of his head. They scrambled under the awning in front of the Cuppa, and stumbled through the door, the wind blowing it shut as thunder shook the building.  
  
Sascha hooted, leaning over the bar and planting a kiss on the man standing behind it. Great to see you're feeling better. Haven't seen you around in ages.  
  
Sam removed his arm from around Grace's waist. Or he tried to. His arm had other ideas. So. You're Eddie, he said, breaking free. Eddie Falco should have born more than a passing resemblance to his brother. They had the same dark hair, strong noses, and straight backs, but they wore their features differently. Ah've been coming here for more than a month and a half, and Ah haven't met you yet. Ah was starting to think you were a spectre.  
  
Eddie held his arms out from his sides, turned in a circle. Flesh and blood, he said with a grin, holding his hand out for Sam to shake. His grip was firm and warm. Edwardo Falco, he said. You can call me Eddie. Ed, though, will have me going for your eyes.  
  
Pleased tah meet you, Sam said, sliding onto a stool. Sam Guthrie.  
  
Eddie asked. Sam nodded. Eddie pursed his lips. Let me guess. Blue Mountain?  
  
Well, actually... Yeah. Sam blinked.   
  
I'm an expert on accents, Eddie said conspiratorially, leaning in close. Comes of listening to the life stories of so many drunken travellers.  
  
  
  
Kyle slapped him on the back. Don't worry. I told him. He was sick and bored, and needed a bit of gossip to keep going.  
  
Sam nodded again. was all he said.  
  
Angela asked. The gentlemen and the lady have never yet had a grasshopper.   
  
Eddie gasped, and Sam thought that his shock was only half pretend.  
  
We were waiting for you to get better. No one makes them like you do.  
  
Eddie just shook his head and set about behind the bar, throwing liquids from various bottles seemingly at random into a pair of tall glasses.  
  
Sam eyed his suspiciously as it slid to a stop before him. Isn't it a bit... Pink? he finally asked. Grasshoppers, green...  
  
My own special mix, Eddie said.  
  
Drink it up, or you're going to hurt his feelings, Angela said. Eddie looked at him with wounded eyes.  
  
Beside him, Grace shrugged and downed hers. she said.  
  
He didn't think that he'd ever seen anyone without a healing factor that instantly negated alcohol take a drink that fast.  
  
He drained his too. This wasn't the first time that Grace had shown that she'd been around the block a few more times than he had, and he didn't want her to think that he was just some kid. He finished it, eyes watering. Pretty good, he coughed. Sascha laughed, and Eddie reached over and patted his back.  
  
He glanced over to see Grace looking at Eddie with an odd expression in her eyes. The flash of familiarity surfaced again, and he could almost grasp it. It danced with the lightning in his blood, and he was on the verge of seizing it when there was another drink deposited in front of him, and his mind derailed. Another grasshopper. Eddie smiled at him warmly. On the house, he said. Try to taste this one.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
Glasses slammed down in unison. Sascha called as Sam stared across the table at them. They were doing straight tequila shots. Sascha and Kyle, and it wasn't the first that they'd had to drink tonight. Angela raised her eyebrow at him over her Coke. They can do this forever,' the look seemed to say. Sascha waved her hand in the air and Eddie wandered on over to the booth they'd moved to a few hours previous.   
  
Another round, she asked him, and he shook his head.  
  
That's enough of the tequila for now, he said.  
  
Kyle snorted at him.  
  
Oh, come off it. You know as well as I do, little brother, that when you wake up hung over in the morning, you're going to blame me for not cutting you off sooner.  
  
What about me? Sascha asked hopefully.  
  
Eddie patted her shoulder, rested his hand on Sam's arm for a second. All I said was no more tequila. If you can walk to the bar, I'll give you a beer. Sam and Grace still seem good, though, and I'm not going to cut someone off of pop.  
  
Sam hummed a slight negative as Eddie walked away. He hadn't had as much to drink that night as any either Kyle or Sascha, but he was still on his way. They'd come out tonight in part to celebrate his official return to the land of the sound of body (Although, as Sascha had so kindly pointed out, he still had a long way to return to the sound of mind.) He may not have training to look forward to in the morning, but he was just getting used enough to not being in pain that he thought it wise to avoid a hangover.  
  
Grace was playing pool up on the top level, laughing and tossing her hair. It sat like gold across her dark shirt. Her partner was a man. Tall, dark, and handsome, looking suave and mysterious. He placed a hand on her arm.  
  
Sam my man, you're growling, Sascha said.  
  
Angela followed his gaze, and winced in sympathy. I'm sure it's nothing, she said.  
  
It *is* nothing, Sam said. She's just a friend. She can play pool with whomever she wants.  
  
Kyle shook his head.   
  
De-nile ain't just a river in Egypt, y'know, Sascha said, taking a pull off of a beer that seemed to have materialised out of thin air.  
  
Sascha, you know that you're full of it when you're drunk, right? he asked.  
  
Sam, you know that you're full of it even when you're not wasted, right? Kyle asked with a raised eyebrow. You have it bad. You can tell yourself whatever you need to to convince yourself otherwise, but it's true. You. Have it bad. For Grace.  
  
And if I do? he asked. So what? It's not like it'd make *any* difference in the way that she felt.  
  
Angela shook her head and started to speak, but fell silent.  
  
Sam asked.   
  
She hesitated, took another sip of her drink. Just... I've known a lot of girls who've been where Grace has. Few of them make it to where she is now.  
  
Sam stared into the bottom of his as of yet unidentified drink. Ah don't quite understand.  
  
She shook her head. No, you can't. You're a guy. But that's something else entirely. You just... You have to be a bit understanding. You have to give her a bit of space.  
  
She's talked to you? he finally asked.   
  
Sascha shook her head. No. She hasn't talked to any of us, and if she could, then that would mean that it wasn't as bad.  
  
Now, that Ah kind of understand. Actually, he kind of thought he understood it all. He finished his drink, and thought of Scott and Jean, pretending so hard, so damn hard that everything was all right, until they couldn't even ask for help any more. Thought of Emma and what it must have been for her, especially as a telepath, to be the only survivor of Genosha, to lose students again and again. He drained the last of the concoction before him and thought that at the very least, he could identify a goodly dose of ameretto.  
  
Tall, dark, and suave stalked past him and out the door of the bar. The thunder and lightning had long since subsided, but it was still raining. Sascha elbowed him in the ribs.   
  
he squawked.  
  
Go talk to her, she said, motioning up towards the pool table with her chin.  
  
But you just said to give her space!  
  
Angela said, we said to give her a bit of space. Not avoid her.  
  
Ah'm not avoiding her, he muttered.  
  
Kyle finally chimed in. Get your ass up there.  
  
He sighed. Stood and pushed his chair in, glaring at each of them just a little. There was a hand on his back suddenly and he turned to see its owner. Eddie smiled at him. Going somewhere? he asked.  
  
Just gonna go see Grace, he said distractedly, not really noticing the look on Eddie's face, and not having the time or the energy to figure out why Kyle and Sascha were suddenly giggling.  
  
Grace was the only one upstairs, save for a small group of men surrounding the foozeball table. It was getting late. The radio seemed curiously loud, cocooning them in country laments.  
  
she said, picking up the bills scattered across the pool table. There was a cue lying on the floor, and he couldn't help but think that it looked like an awful lot of money scattered across the felt. She pocketed it casually, like it was something that happened all the time. she asked, raising an eyebrow.  
  
Yah scammed that guy, he said. It just slipped out, and he kicked himself.  
  
Her eyebrow was still raised but her eyes had taken on a slightly dangerous glint. Your point being? she asked.   
  
Yah shouldn't, he said. And he kicked himself again, because he certainly hadn't meant to spit *that* out.  
  
And why not? she asked.  
  
It's wrong, was all he could come up with at that point. Oh, score one for him. Ever so witty and convincing.  
  
Sam, you are in no position to judge me.  
  
Ah'm *not*! Ah'm just...  
  
Just what? Pointing out where we differ in a way that makes it seem like your preconceptions are the ultimate be-all, end-all?  
  
Grace... Ah didn't mean... It just kinda slipped out.  
  
You don't have a high horse to stand on, Sam.  
  
He didn't, did he? He was lying to his friends about his very lifestyle, about who and what he was.  
  
I mean, you've been leading poor Eddie on all night. Either that, or you've been leading me on.  
  
That stopped him dead. He'd been about to apologize, ask forgiveness, but he stopped, and all that came out was beg your pardon?  
  
She asked sarcastically. You know, the bartender. He's been flirting with you all night.  
  
What... He has not!  
  
She just looked at him.  
  
He has not!  
  
Sam, he's checking out your ass right now.  
  
Sam turned around, scanning the bar. Eddie was back at a booth, and he smiled up at him. Sam smiled weakly, waved, and turned back to Grace. She took one look at his face and started to laugh.  
  
You've got to be one of the most oblivious people I know, Sam, she gasped. You really had no idea, did you?  
  
He shook his head. Her laughter was infectious, and he felt it start to bubble up inside of himself, bringing back the lightning in his veins. He tried to blame it on the alcohol. He leaned back against the pool table beside her.  
  
I do a pretty good cute act, Sam, she said. I do. I can be the little defenseless girl, the innocent child. I'm *good* at her, Sam. I am. And anyone who'd take advantage of her deserves to lose a bit of money or get taken down a few notches.  
  
He nodded. It made some odd sort of sense.  
  
It may not be the code you live by, but it's just as valid, she said, and her voice was quiet. He rubbed her back, and he thought that he caught a glimpse of a smile on her lips before her hair curtained her face. It was something that he was starting to get. Every point of view had something going for it if you took the time.   
  
Her back was warm beneath his hand, the lightning was singing through his blood again, and the rain whispered against the walls. She stiffened suddenly, pulled away from him and headed down the stairs. He followed her, because he didn't know what else to do. She didn't stop for her jacket, just hit the doors and vanished out into the night as he trailed at her heels.  
  
The wind whipped rain at him, obscuring his vision and chilling him to the core, and he thought for a second that he'd lost her. He wiped the rain from his face and he saw her. She was standing in the middle of the deserted street, arms out. There was water bubbling and rushing in the gutters, and the wind whipped her hair around her in a twisting nimbus.  
  
He approached her slowly, cautiously, not sure if she even knew that he was there. Her eyes were fixed blindly on the roiling sky. Ah do something wrong? he asked, just trying to bring her back from where ever her mind had wandered. She didn't respond at first, then slowly she shook her head and laughed. It was a bitter sound, and it fit right in with the wind.  
  
she said. You didn't do anything wrong. That's part of the problem.  
  
he said.  
  
You know I was jealous tonight, Sam? I was *jealous*.  
  
The idea normally would have given him a bit of thrill, but at the moment he was just concerned for Grace.  
  
Do you know what that means? she asked, and she turned the full intensity of her eyes on him. It wasn't the propertorial kind of jealous, either. It just honest, intense jealousy, and... And... I don't let myself get close enough to be jealous. I can't. It wouldn't be fair. It's not. It isn't fair to you, Sam.  
  
It seems to me that what wouldn't be fair to me would be to not give me that chance. Ah like you, Grace.  
  
You don't even know me.  
  
So give me that chance!  
  
Sam, if you knew me, then you wouldn't like me.  
  
he said, struggling for words, trying to find something to fill the spaces between the wind. Look, to really know you would take a lifetime. And even then, I wouldn't know all the details. I've known you, what? A month? That's plenty of time to know sometimes. I know *who* you are. I may not know what you are, where you've been, or where you come from, but I know who you are, and that's all that really matters. He stood there, shivering in the rain, trying to punch his words through.  
  
She laughed, a wild, fierce sound that sang with thunder. She twisted away from him and spun in the rain, face lifted to catch the drops. She stopped with a final gasping laugh, stood still as a statue. This is me, she said finally, between the raindrops. In this moment, in this one single moment, this is me. Just me.  
  
Cautiously he lay a hand on her arm, hovering over her like a bird in flight before he dropped his hand to her skin. He more than half expected her to bolt. She laughed once more, and it was bitter. Just me, she whispered, turning her face up to him and searching his eyes for something. Her gaze cut right through him, sliced him open to his very core as she searched for something, anything.  
  
She must have found it because she leaned in towards him cautiously, as if expecting to have to pull back at any second. She rested her head lightly on his shoulder, and he put his arms loosely around her. Her skin was almost feverish hot to the touch.  
  
There are a lot of things that you can't know about me, she said, her voice muffled by his shoulder. There are a lot of things that even I don't know, Sam, that I don't quite remember. I'm not whole. I'm not complete. I'm just trying to find...  
  
he said. It's okay. We all have our own secrets.  
  
They stood there in the rain and the wind until a car tore through the night, spraying water into the air and forcing them inside, laughing.  
  
*  
  
Okay, you hold him up and I'll pick the lock.  
  
Funny how real' life mirrored that of the spandex squad, Sam thought, as he held a semiconscious Kyle upright. Grace crouched in front of the apartment door and pulled something from her hair. A few seconds later the door swung open and she hauled them inside.   
  
Where'd you learn to do that? he gasped.   
  
When I was little, I kept forgetting my house key, she said as she turned on the lights and came back to help hoist Kyle up. The man was no feather weight, and he was just conscious enough that he was making everything harder for them. Dad was always at work, and even when mom was there, she couldn't always be counted on to get the door open.  
  
Sam kicked the door closed behind them. They'd dragged Kyle back to his place only to find that Sascha had taken his keys earlier in the evening. She hadn't been in the best of shape either, so Angela had landed the task of taking her back to her place.   
  
Sam wasn't exactly in shape for driving either, so he was taking up Kyle's offer of a place to crash whenever he needed one. He'd actually been taking it up rather often lately.  
  
They dumped Kyle on his bed, then Sam began peeling off his shoes and socks.  
  
You got him? Grace asked.  
  
This is nothing, he said with a grin, and she shut the door behind herself. Usually when he had to take care of someone who had passed out, he had to be constantly on guard against the possibility of getting a stomach full of adamantium, or of suddenly realizing that his hands hand been blown off.  
  
Grace was sprawled across the couch when he came out, flipping channels on the television. Nothing on, she said as she wrinkled her nose. Unless you want to watch Miss Cleo dupe the unsuspecting.  
  
Sam snorted, took the remote and turned off the television. She's not even a telepath, he said.  
  
Grace looked at him oddly.  
  
he said quickly. Nothing on tv, but we have movies.  
  
What've we got? she asked with some curiosity, then paused. I really shouldn't. It's getting pretty late.  
  
Action movies, romance movies, comedies... he said almost desperately. And Disney movies. Lots and lots of Disney movies. Sascha loves them.  
  
She grinned at him, and it was an unassuming, complete smile. I've never actually seen one, she said.  
  
He stopped. You've never seen a Disney movie? he asked incredulously.  
  
She shook her head.  
  
  
  
She grinned at him. Well, I certainly haven't seen one since you asked last.  
  
he said. I'll make popcorn. We have to remedy this. He paused. Not even Snow White?  
  
She shook her head.   
  
So he made a big bowl of popcorn, and poured both of them glasses of Coke. They'd both had enough alcohol for the night. Popping a cassette at random into the VCR he settled down beside her.  
  
She hogged the popcorn.   
  
He moved it from between them after awhile.  
  
she cried.  
  
Ah made it. Ah'd like some too, he said.  
  
Put the popcorn back.  
  
You want the popcorn?  
  
  
  
You really want the popcorn? he asked. She grinned and bared her teeth.  
  
Yes. Popcorn.  
  
Here yah go, he said, and emptied it over her head.  
  
She sat with her mouth wide open for a second, and it gave him time to skitter out of arm's reach.  
  
You're going to pay for that, she said, stalking him across the room.  
  
Yah said yah wanted the popcorn...  
  
She snarled at him. Something in her eyes didn't bode well for him. To eat, Sam. Not to wear. It doesn't accessorise well with what I've got on.  
  
Be careful or you'll wake Kyle, he said desperately. The movie played on in the background.  
  
Sam, Apocalypse himself wouldn't wake Kyle right now.  
  
he squeaked, dodging as she lunged. She missed, but she turned and threw herself at him again.  
  
The air rushed out of his lungs as her weight carried him to the carpet. You're gonna pay for that, she grunted as they rolled about the living room. His clothes were still somewhat damp, he realized. He also came to the sudden realisation that Grace had wrestled him to a stop and was now sitting on him, pinning him to the ground.  
  
He couldn't help it. He froze.   
  
She did, too. He could see the beginning of something building in her eyes, and he didn't move except to breath. Slowly, ever so slowly, she leaned forward, and her breath was cool against his flushed skin. Strands of her hair danced across his skin, and he couldn't hear anything outside of his heartbeat and breath and the steady thrumming in his head. She ran her fingers hesitantly through his hair, tangled them in as she kissed his forehead, the curve of his cheek, his jaw, the corner of his mouth.   
  
Pulling back, she just looked at him, her face hovering so close that he could feel the warmth from her skin. she asked, her eyes bright. He couldn't tell if it was a question or a plea or an apology.   
  
Then her eyes swallowed him and it didn't matter because he was kissing her.  
  
  



	7. Chapter 7

*  
**The Karma Downs**  
**7/13**  
*  


  
  
Sam whispered, kissing Grace's temple. Early morning light streamed in through the open window, making her hair glow. She groaned and pillowed her head on him.  
  
She mumbled what he translated roughly as I hate mornings,' and fell silent again, her breath steady and warm against his chest.  
  
Watching her, he fell asleep.  
  
When he woke, it was to an empty bed. The indent beside him was still warm, though, and he staggered to his feet. he asked blearily as he pulled on a pair of pants. His shirt seemed to be missing.  
  
He padded out the door in bare feet. he asked again, and found his shirt.  
  
Looks good on you, he said with a grin, watching her tear apart the living room.   
  
She stopped and blew her hair back from her face with a frown. You seen mine? she asked him.  
  
Yeah. Last night.  
  
Big help there. What I *meant* was Do you have any idea where my shirt is now?'  
  
he said with a grin. Haven't seen your pants, either.  
  
she said, growling in frustration. You're not helping.  
  
Ah am too. Whose shirt do you think that you're wearing right now?  
  
That's not help. That's protection from the elements.  
  
he said with a grin, moving towards her, Ah don't see many elements that you need protection from in here. If you're going to be like that, then Ah might as well take it back. If it's not helping you at all, that is.  
  
She scrambled away from him. The cuffs came over her wrists and the hem hit mid-thigh. Not exactly something that she was big on getting into scuffle in. What about you? she asked, backing away.  
  
That's kind of you, Grace. Ah will feel much better with a shirt again.  
  
You have a change of clothes back in the room.  
  
Ah want that shirt.  
  
What about you? she repeated desperately, scrambling up onto the couch. I may not need any protection from the forces of nature, but it looks like I need protection from you.  
  
Really, you wound me, he said in mock pain, a grin splitting his face as she backed to the end of the couch and hit the wall. Does the garden need protection from a tourist who only wants to admire its beauty?  
  
No, but it does if the poor, bedraggled tourist wants to jump into the bushes.  
  
He leaned forward, trapping her with one arm against the wall and the other against the back of the couch. What if the offender isn't a poor and bedraggled tourist, but a poor, young, comely student? he asked as he kissed her jaw.  
  
I suppose some allowances could be made, she said with a sigh before she leaned forward and kissed him. I'm still going to make you pay, though, she said with a wicked grin.  
  
Ah guess Ah'll just have to take that chance.  
  
*  
  
Bobby lashed out a hand at his opponent, icing up and dropping him. There was a noise behind him and he continued his motion, arm flying as he pivoted. A head jerked backward out of his way and a hand flashed diamond as it blocked him.   
  
he panted, letting the ice slide away. Hey, Emma.  
  
She raised one elegant white eyebrow at him as the program faded away.  
  
Bobby said, glad that the flush on his cheeks could be put down to the exertion. Didn't see you.  
  
Obviously not.  
  
Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. What are you doing here?  
  
What am *I* doing here? I seem to recall a certain fearless leader forbidding solo training.  
  
I got here early, Bobby said.   
  
Three hours early, before everyone was even up?  
  
  
  
You hate the mornings, Bobby. I know that.  
  
He leered at her. You do know that, don't you?  
  
She carried right on over top of him. And there is no training this morning.  
  
Isn't there? I could've sworn Scott said something...  
  
He did say something. He said No training in the morning.' You danced. You sang. You ordered a pizza.  
  
Bobby replied with a grin. I guess I forgot. Because of the early hour and all.  
  
she purred, stepping forward and whispering in his ear. It's a silly rule, anyway. Say someone just wanted to practice, without dragging other people into it. Inconveniencing them, even. Learn something new without having to worry about what the others were thinking, or having to take their helpful' advice. There wouldn't be anything wrong with that, now would there?  
  
My thoughts exactly, he said hoarsely, and he knew that it had to be apparent by now that the flush in his skin wasn't just from working out.  
  
She knew it, and it danced easily between them. Her eyes sparkled. He'd never seen her eyes sparkle before. Emma wasn't the kind of woman who had sparkling eyes, but there they were, glinting and sparking. There was something eerie about the effect, against the whiteness of her skin and hair. The steady brightness of her eyes seemed somewhat over the top, and the sparkles distorted the colour.  
  
She took one last step towards him, until there was no more than an inch between them and he could feel the warmth coming off of her body. Early mornings are good for that, she confided. Her breath tickled his skin. A person like that, just looking to train without silly rules or inconveniencing anyone, they'd be safest doing it in the early morning. Less likely for someone to catch them at it.  
  
He should have been saying something about not circumventing Scott's authority, but he couldn't bring himself to particularly care. It was a silly rule. One he would have no problem breaking. A small voice inside of him whispered that there was a damn good reason for Scott's decision, if he'd just *think*, think about it, damn it.  
  
But the voice was getting smaller and smaller lately. More white and washed out, and it rarely agreed with him. It spoke of rules and convention and motivation, and he was moving beyond it.  
  
So he pushed that little voice aside, and latched onto white words instead.  
  
*  
  
Morning guys! Sascha called. she glanced into the living room as she passed, Angela close on her heels. It looked messier than she remembered, but it was deserted. Oh. Hey! she said with some surprise when they hit the kitchenette/diner. Grace was sitting out on the balcony in the long chair, arms wrapped around her knees. Steam rose from the coffee sitting beside her on the table, whipped away by the winds.  
  
she said, eyes fixed on the skyline. The glass door was fully open, and the sounds of the day filled the apartment.  
  
Sascha winced a bit as a siren wailed somewhere nearby, and a horn sounded on the street below. Any more of that coffee? she asked hopefully.  
  
Grace shook her head. No. But there are beans in the cupboard, and the pot's still warm.  
  
Sascha nodded and winced at the bright sun. I'm just going to go make some, she said, turning and heading back into the apartment.  
  
Angela leaned against the balcony railing. she said finally, then dropped into the second chair, long dark legs extended in front of her. We came for breakfast, she said cheerfully. Sascha didn't have any food at her place, so she staggered over to mine, which is closer. I was planning on going later today, but she seems to need coffee in a bad way, so we came over here. You're just lucky I got some advil into her before she got here.  
  
Grace nodded silently. Her cup was clasped loosely in her hands, and she sipped it before she spoke. Kyle's still out of it. Don't know when he's planning on making an appearance  
  
Probably now that Sascha's here, Angela said with a grin. They always seem to know when the other is around. He's missed temple, though. He always feels bad when he misses it because of something like this, even though he likely wouldn't have gone anyways. She paused. You know you're lucky Sascha's still hung over. She asks more questions than anyone I know.  
  
Grace turned and a small smile broke the seriousness of her face. You, on the other hand, imply things until you get an explanation.  
  
That's the plan.  
  
Whatever works for you. I tend to prefer directness myself.  
  
Angela lifted her face to the wind. she said finally. He's not *that* bad, is he?  
  
Grace gasped. she asked with a hint of a laugh in her voice.  
  
Well, from the look on your face, Sam either passed out half way through or he killed your dog.  
  
She shook her head and laughed. No. Nothing like that. I have... No complaints.  
  
What is it, then?  
  
Grace shook her head and took another gulp of her coffee. she said, staring out at the world that danced around them, unaware of as much as their presence, let alone affected by their words.  
  
Angela said.  
  
No, really. It's nothing.  
  
  
  
They sat in silence. Grace finished her coffee, put the cup down on the table with a clunk that somehow didn't blend in with the noises around them.  
  
He's a nice guy, she said finally. She expected Angela to say something, as her what was wrong with that, but she didn't. He's a nice guy, Grace repeated. I... I don't really know how to deal with nice guys.  
  
You like him, Angela said. You actually like him, really like him, and that scares you.  
  
I don't know if it scares me, she said defensively. It's just not something that I'm used to.  
  
It seems to me, Angela finally proclaimed, that those two factors are a pretty good coincidence. That he *is* a nice guy, and that you really like him. It makes trust easier.  
  
You think I have issues with trust? Grace asked, and the lightness in her voice didn't fool even her.  
  
I think that it's something that you need to work on before you lose the capacity.  
  
Grace sat silent. I did, you know. I lost it completely. I didn't trust the people around me, and I trusted myself least of all.  
  
You get kicked a few times when you're down and it's easy to do. Especially if no one ever offers you a hand up. You get to thinking that it's something wrong with *you,* and that's a hard chain to stop. With the weight of that, and the people around you pushing, it's hard to keep your head above the water.  
  
It was me, Angela. At the end, it was, even if it wasn't at the start. I've just... I've had to be so many people to keep from drowning, that who I was got lost along the way. Grace stared down at her cup, drained the last of the bitter dregs. I'm just trying to find my way back to me. I don't want to be who I was any more. It's just so hard to break the habits, the way I've lived to survive. It kept me alive, but I lost a lot along the way. Like the capacity to trust, because everyone turns on you in the end.  
  
Angela said, I'd say that that's an unfair generalisation, but unfortunately, it's true too much of the time. You can't let it get to you though, and this might be a good place to start. With a nice boy who you happen to really like.  
  
Grace smiled weakly.  
  
I'll tell you what, though, Angela continued. Sam breaks your heart, and I'll break his arm.  
  
Grace laughed at that, and it wasn't bitter. She looked out at the sky then turned her attention back to the woman sitting beside her. There's something uncanny about you, Angela, she said, but it wasn't a judgment.  
  
My grand'ma was a bruja, she said, flipping her sunglasses down onto her face. And if you think *I'm* uncanny...  
  
Grace smiled again. Stared down into her coffee cup, then out at the sun reflecting off of the buildings around them. I should go, she said, rising and brushing off her clothes.  
  
See you round, Angela said.  
  
Grace replied. She paused in the entrance to the apartment. You guys might want to let Sam sleep, she remarked with a wicked grin. He's very tired.  
  
*  
  
He dreamed of white. Beneath his feet, always inches from his fingers, above his head. It started to burn into his eyes, and he wondered if he'd ever be able to see anything else again.  
  
It was the cold that snapped him out of his daze enough to see that the white had lightened slightly, taken on a tinge of grey.  
  
Snow crunched beneath his feet and fog surrounded him like a cloak. His fingers and toes were numb, and the ground was calling out, singing to him of the arms of sleep. He kept walking, drawn forward by something always out of his reach.  
  
The fog dissipated slightly. Drew back so that he was surrounded by a sphere of dead air, depriving him of even the touch of mist on his skin, until all that there was was the snow beneath his feet, the sound of his steps muffled before they reached his ears.  
  
He kept walking.  
  
Wind whipped at him silently, the only testament to its presence the chill it brought, plucking at his clothes and hair, and the slight eddies in the fog.  
  
He put one foot in front of the other for what seemed an eternity, the wind numbing him until the only sensation left to him was the thrumming in his head, pulling him forward.  
  
The wind died down. Fog twirled in around him, but the wind had been the last big hurrah. Snow beneath his feet slowly regained sound, texture. He wasn't cold now, but burning with ice. Fog lifted gradually, leaving him alone in the landscape.  
  
Barren white snow, pure white snow, stretched out around him, mounds lost against the sky, horizon blending into earth. He felt like he was floating. He moved his feet just to reassure himself that they touched the ground, and it groaned beneath his feet.  
  
The pull was gone.  
  
Bending down he dug at the snow with his fingers, scooped it until even the burning had left them and the only way he could tell that they were still attached was that he could see them moving.  
  
He hit something that didn't yield. Sitting back on his heels, he stared blankly as the wind picked up, clearing the snow away from the small hole he had dug.  
  
He was standing on a lake.  
  
Sunlight hit him suddenly and his eyes shot open.  
  
He groaned. Cracked open an eye and saw the room around him, beanbag chair in the corner, desk across from him.  
  
Hey sleepy-head, Kyle said with what Sam knew had to be forced brightness after he'd dropped him unconscious into his bed the night before. Grace just left. She said to tell you that your shirt is hidden somewhere within the apartment.   
  
He groaned again. He'd liked waking up better the first two times he'd done it this morning.   
  
She said that you'd know why.  
  



	8. Chapter 8

*  
**The Karma Downs**  
**8/13**  
*  


  
  
So this was what they meant by being able to cut the tension with a knife, Sam thought. No one spoke, hardly as much as moved. The silence was barely even punctured when Hank turned the pages of his newspaper. When Sam went to butter his toast, he could almost feel it pulling at the blade.  
  
Bobby bounded into the room and pulled a can of pop from the refrigerator. He popped it open and took a drink, then paused and surveyed the room. Geez, who died?   
  
Scott shook his head warningly.   
  
Jean sighed and pointed at his coke. Not for breakfast, Bobby.  
  
Pass the butter please, Sam, Scott said, and reality snapped back to its normal flow. Scott and Jean smiled their too comforting smiles and ate their breakfast, and made small talk with Hank or Bobby, or asked Sam how his courses were going. Sam noticed with an odd feeling that even when both Scott and Jean were talking to the same person, they didn't speak to each other. It was surreal, and he thought that he almost preferred the strained silence to the farce of normalcy.   
  
That would never do, of course. At Xavier's, if you weren't all right, you pretended your hardest to be.   
  
I'm going to be away for a couple of days, he said abruptly, interrupting a conversation about how even without Ororo around the weather was unbelievably beautiful, especially for early November. Not even really a conversation, he thought. More like idle comments strung together to try and make something more.  
  
Scott raised an eyebrow at him across his coffee mug.   
  
Yeah. Ah'm going out to the beach park with some friends from school. We're gonna camp out while it's still so... unbelievably beautiful, especially for early November. Take advantage of the long weekend and all.  
  
Scott looked like he was about to object, but he shook his head a bit and sighed. I was planning on running some extended training exercises, but... Here he paused at a groan from Bobby. But I suppose I can cancel them. We all deserve a bit of a break, he finished.  
  
His face was unreadable and his eyes were covered by his ruby glasses. There were times that Sam really wished that he could just see the other man's eyes, because he had no idea of how his mind worked. Thank yah, was all he said.  
  
The talk drifted back off to the weather. Sam finished his toast and excused himself. He was part way back to his room when foot steps thudded up behind him. He spun out of reflex, but it was just Bobby, who clasped a hand to his shoulder and grinned widely.   
  
Thanks, man, Bobby said.   
  
Sam blinked.  
  
For getting us out of training this weekend?  
  
Oh. Well, Ah wasn't trying to throw everything out of whack...  
  
No, it's good, Bobby grinned. I'm sure I can come up with things to do that are much less effort. Or even just much less pain. He paused. Or things that may involve as much effort and pain, but a good deal more fun. It's great, though. It's too bad you're stuck out in the park, but the rest of us should have some real fun, especially if we can get Scott out of the picture.  
  
Sam nodded vaguely, trying to cover the look that was attempting to creep onto his face. No problem. Look, Ah kind of need to get my stuff packed in time to still get to class, because we're heading out right after Angela's done with her biochem lecture.  
  
Bobby said and headed down the hall. Have fun out in the bush.  
  
Sam nodded in his general direction and slipped into his room. He threw a couple of his shirts in the general direction of his bed and sat against the wall. His hands were shaking and it took him a couple of seconds to realize that the ragged breathing he was hearing was his own. Anger, he realized dully. His pulse was elevated and he was showing all of the symptoms of anger.  
  
He was angry at Bobby. He had wanted to smile at him nicely, move in a bit closer, and smack him back against the wall. And he barely even knew why. Sure, Bobby was being a bit of an ass lately, and he wasn't himself, but...  
  
He didn't normal react this way. He really didn't like the feeling.  
  
So he smoothed his clothes into his bag with shaking hands, and told himself that his heart wasn't racing.  
  
*  
  
The sky was blue. Artificial bright and crayon coloured, it spanned above them, and it soothed him. He'd calmed down on the drive into Manhattan, but hadn't been able to figure out exactly what it was that had set him off. Gulls cried above them, the white and grey providing the only break of colour in the sky.  
  
They smell supper, Kyle called as he flipped burgers. Some of the other campers feed them, or just leave their garbage lying around for them to peck at.  
  
Sam nodded, letting his head move along with the music pounding from Kyle's car. It was some odd mix of country, techno, and rock, getting louder as Sascha leaned in through the open door and fiddled with the stereo. I love this song! she hollered as she ran back to the green, intercepting the frisbee that Eddie had thrown to her.  
  
I'll give you one thing, Grace said. No matter what the rest of that car looks like, the sound system can stand with the best. She was perched on the hood of his truck, her feet drawn up on the bumper. He grinned at her and leaned back against the grill of the truck, wrapping an arm around her waist. A breeze blew off the ocean, carrying the scent of surf and sand and burgers.  
  
The frisbee that Sascha and Eddie were throwing veered in the wind, sunlight flashing off of it. The wind picked up the edges of the rather heavy text Angela had in front of her and she smoothed the pages down with an absent hand. The sun was bright and hot, and the grass was as green as emeralds. Some part of Sam realized that this was the sort of the day that you'd always remember. Escaping from class to drive out of the city and kick back with your friends, when everything was in crayon hues and technicolour. Indian summer, early November, stereo pounding and grill sizzling, and the water too cold to swim but still good for wading and splashing because the sand was hot under your feet and the wind was warm. Sleeping bags and tents thrown in the back of the truck, because you had the park to yourself and the nights were cold.  
  
Grace slithered off of the hood, turning into his arms and kissing him. There was something in her eyes that only later would he come to recognize as a sort of quiet desperation. This is good, she said suddenly, fiercely, and kissed him again.  
  
Whoo! Go Guthrie! Sascha hollered, flinging the frisbee at them with a grin as they broke apart.  
  
Sam caught it somewhat clumsily, and Grace snagged it from between his fingers and launched it into the trees with sparkling eyes. Sascha loped off after it easily, leaving Eddie collapsed against a picnic table, laughing. Gooooo Sascha! he called. Angela looked up from her book and a grin forced its way through even her normally serene facade.  
  
Grace pulled away from his arm poked her head into the truck. she said as she pulled a bag from the cab and wandered over to the barbecue with it.   
  
Kyle asked as she peered over his shoulder.   
  
Oh, nothing. I can't cook.  
  
  
  
But you know what I think these need?  
  
he asked, wiping his hands on his smock.  
  
she said firmly, handing him a bottle from the bag.  
  
He smiled at her widely. he called. I'm stealing your girlfriend.  
  
Fine by me, Sam said. She steals mah clothes.  
  
Is it my fault that they look better on me?  
  
Kyle laughed while Sam tried to look affronted. She's got you there. Course, I hope that some day you learn the true irony of this. The reason you're letting her go makes her even more of a draw.  
  
Oh, you wouldn't want me, Grace said with a grin. I hog the covers. Besides, she added conspiratorially, Sascha would kill me. She sidestepped a bit, just in time to avoid the frisbee careening at Kyle's head. And then she'd kill you. It bounced off the side of his head and he just barely manage to keep it from falling into the grill.  
  
They all laughed except for Kyle, who clutched his head in mock pain, and Sascha, who fought to keep a smile off of her face. Grace extended a beer to her as well. Peace offering? she asked.  
  
Sascha grinned and took it. *I* may have to steal you, too.  
  
Kyle paused. I wouldn't have a problem with that.  
  
I think I'm going to have to kill him anyway, Sascha sighed.  
  
*  
  
He dreamed of white skies. Clear air now, no fog. Somehow that was worse, because the very air itself was still and hostile.  
  
He walked, and the only way that he knew that he was moving was by looking down at his legs, because he may as well have been floating. The snow was silent beneath his feet and when he looked behind himself there were no footprints.  
  
The outside pull, the compulsion was gone. It had deserted him with the remnants of that last dream, and only now could he remember either. His mind drew him onward, and his legs seemed to remember the line the pull had drawn, because he was moving blind.  
  
Snow dunes around him, changing changing changing as he went and they never differed. Everything different was the same, and everything the same was different.  
  
He thought that he might go mad.  
  
The dunes and mounds gave way and he was suddenly standing on black ice. There was no transition, no fading of the snow, just white to black and a sudden hardness beneath his feet.  
  
Wind whipped at him, its scream breaking the cone of silence that had surrounded him. He could hear his breathing, low and ragged, and the sound of his feet as he stepped out across the ice. The wind raced across the plane, polishing it to a marble sheen, and he realized abstractedly that the snow had been blocking it from him before.  
  
He walked and the wind howled, not knowing what he was searching for in the great empty waste, until he slipped on the mirror black surface and fell. The temptation to just lie there was so strong.  
  
What would it hurt to rest for a second? To just wait for some of his strength to return? The wind was singing a lullaby and his eyes were heavy and he... he was... just... so... tired...  
  
He snapped his eyes open, the wind returning to its normal howl. He couldn't let himself fall asleep. The second he did, it was all over. The ice was cold beneath his aching forehead and he thought that he had a bruise. He pushed himself up on shaking arms and froze, because he noticed that there were bubbles frozen in the ice. They went down rather far, he noted clinically while something in his mind started to scream, because the ice wasn't black at all, it was perfectly *clear* and it was the water that he was seeing, clear water that went down and down and down and if the ice was to break it would swallow him and he would disappear without a trace, without a notice because it was that deep and that immense.  
  
He found that he was scrambling backwards and he stopped and shut his eyes. Leaned back on his wrists to feel that the ice was solid and he shook his head, stood and carried on.   
  
He kept his head straight and his eyes on the sudden line where the sky and horizon met until he saw a pale spot ahead of him. He studied it carefully, realizing belatedly that he had broken into a run when it grew at a faster and faster rate.  
  
There was sweat on his brow when he reached it and the wind licked it up greedily, chilling him. It was beneath the ice he realized now, and suddenly the thoughts of falling right through slammed back down around his mind. He shut them out, only allowing himself the leeway to study the paleness, filling himself up with it until nothing else was real.   
  
It twisted wildly, white and gold winding in a circle and he thought that he knew what it was, and he was afraid.  
  
It hung on the edge of his awareness, and he almost knew what he would see if it twisted just so, clearing a space. It was there and he didn't want to know and he needed to see, but the white sky was dimming, changing, and there was a pressure on his chest and all around him and the ice twisted and swallowed him.  
  
He woke in the dark, the walls of the tent closing in around him, his sleeping bag too tight. The air was still and tepid and he couldn't breath because it was all going to collapse around him. He didn't know how he made it out of the sleeping bag but he was fumbling at the fly of the tent with shaking fingers and then he was out in night air. What he needed was to go flying, just put some space between him and the earth, but he couldn't risk it. Not with Kyle and Sascha and Angela and Eddie scattered around the campsite. Not when there was the chance that Grace would wake up to find him gone. He sat on a picnic table, clenched his fists to still them, and stared up at the sky  
  
  
  
He turned at the sound of the sleepy voice. Grace was carefully picking her way towards him from the tent. It was somehow reassuring to him to see her like that, hair mussed and rubbing her eyes, because she always looked so put together, so close to perfect that he sometimes wondered at how human she was. Even her morning disarray had a careful sort of poise to it. Ah didn't mean tah wake yah, he said.  
  
You didn't. It was the *other* man I'm sleeping with scrambling out of the tent who did. But he ran away, so I thought I'd come talk to you.  
  
Go back tah sleep, Grace.  
  
She sat on the table beside him. Are you all right?  
  
Ah'm fine, he said with what he hoped was a convincing smile. The truth was he *was* starting to feel better. The air was moving around him again and the sky was so completely far above him.  
  
she said, resting her head on his shoulder. You're completely fine. That's why your heart's racing and you ran out of there and your accent is so thick.  
  
What does mah accent have tah do with anything?  
  
When you're stressed, or upset, or really excited, it's just more there.  
  
Ah'm going tah... I'm going to have to watch that.  
  
she said with a smile. It's cute.  
  
He smiled at that, and though it was a weak smile it was a real one.  
  
Now, are you going to tell me what's bothering you?  
  
It's the stupidest thing.  
  
If it's bothering you that much then it's not that stupid, Sam.  
  
He sighed and she slid her arm around him. That undid him right there. They'd been seeing each other for more than three weeks, but physical gestures of affection were rare from her. When she touched people it was with a purpose, and he just tried not to let it hurt him when she'd pull away from his hand.  
  
It was too *tight* in there, he said simply. Ah... Ah used tah work in the mines back in Kentucky. Ah spent a lot of time there after mah father died, trying to support mah family. When Ah was sixteen, there was a cave in. Ah was working at the time and Ah got caught. Ah was lucky, really. A lot of people didn't make it out.  
  
Were you hurt? she asked him, and there was something *real* in her eyes that she so often seemed to be missing.   
  
No. Ah was fine, was all he said. What he wanted to say was My powers kicked in and I blasted out of there. I was fine, but I was one of a few, and I've always felt guilty as hell about it,' but he couldn't. He couldn't bear to have her back away because he was a mutant and all he'd been able to save was himself. He was a mutant and he'd survived and hadn't saved the others. It was just... It wasn't just the dark, because Ah'm not afraid of it. And it wasn't claustrophobia that made me high tail it out of there. It's just sometimes, when the air doesn't move and there's no light and no space and there's pressure on me... he said instead, trailing off, staring up at the stars.  
  
You feel trapped? Grace whispered, something catching in her voice.  
  
he said, looking down at her. Silly, huh?  
  
No. Not silly at all. She hugged him hard and he let his arms wrap around her. We all feel trapped sometimes, she whispered. It's how we break out that shapes who we are. You can take what it is and use it as a shield until you've become the very thing that you're trying to get away from, or you can just be who you are, and let the rest fall into place.  
  
You're pretty smart, he said, kissing her.  
  
I've only taken the wrong way out a couple of times. I'm just trying to get it right this time around. She paused. Even if I can't quite remember all of it, she added with a little smile.  
  
Ah'm always here if you need to talk, he said.  
  
I know, she said, pulling away from him. Your mother must be so proud of you, she said as he tried to keep the hurt off of his face.  
  
You'd think so, he said with a grin.  
  
  
  
  
  
I know that look.  
  
What look?  
  
The one you're wearing right now, that says I'm hurting but I'm going to cover it up so that no one else has to worry about it.'  
  
He shrugged. You'd be surprised how many people it works on.  
  
Sam, you're trying not to tell me because you don't want to add to whatever I have that's going on. Why does talking to other people make you feel guilty?  
  
It doesn't. That would be pretty messed up, wouldn't it?  
  
It is. Especially when you're walking around with the world on your shoulders and offering to take everyone else's bags.  
  
Ah'm not!  
  
Yes. You are. You just offered to have me unload all of my baggage on you.  
  
That's different!  
  
Why? Because we're together? Sam, you'd do it for any of your friends.  
  
Well, they *are* mah friends...  
  
Sam, everyone's your friend. You'd do the same for anyone, up to and including some strange person you met on the street. Or in a bar, playing pool.  
  
He paused. There were people he wouldn't... Well, Stryfe. He wouldn't offer to help Stryfe. Unless he was really, *really* sorry for all the times he'd tried to kill him, Cable, and the people that they cared about. Senator Kelly. He wouldn't help Senator Kelly. Unless he thought that he could change his mind about mutants. Or... he finally replied. You've got me there.  
  
Grace continued, How am I supposed to feel about unloading to you when you don't seem to trust me enough to even tell me what's going on in your life outside of school?  
  
She had him there too, but he couldn't. Oh, nothing much. I spend a bunch of time flying around fighting super villains, dealing with aliens, foiling nefarious plots to take over the world, and trying to figure out the Summer's family tree. Want to see my spandex collection?'  
  
She sighed and shook her head. Look, forget about it, she said, rising from the table and starting back towards the tent.   
  
  
  
I said forget about it. Her bearing said very clearly that she wasn't planning on forgetting about it soon.  
  
Last time Ah left Kentucky, it wasn't a very amicable parting, he said, trying to find the right words. Ah keep hoping that it'll get better, but one thing that Ah've learned is that parting in anger builds up hurt feelings that don't just go away. So please, don't go away mad.   
  
She paused at the tent and shook her head. You're mad, too, she said finally.  
  
Maybe Ah am, a bit. Ah'm more hurt that yah don't think that yah can trust me, but Ah hear what you're saying.  
  
Look, Sam, please believe me when I say that that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. With a sigh, she made her way back over to him, carefully picking her way through the grass in her bare feet. I trust you about as much as I've trusted anyone in a long time. I just don't trust myself. She sat down gingerly beside him. So. What happened with your family?  
  
You know, you're the first person tah really ask me that.  
  
You kind of gave me a rather large clue.  
  
Ah know. But still. The people Ah live with, they have to see that something's changed, that Ah'm not the same as Ah used to be, or at the very least that Ah haven't been back home since Ah came back mad.  
  
They're idiots, then.  
  
No. They're just busy. And maybe they just want to let me deal with it on my own.  
  
Grace sighed. What *did* happen?  
  
Have Ah ever talked to you about mah sister? he asked.  
  
She shook her head.  
  
Well, she's always wanted to be just like me. She wanted to follow in the footsteps of what Ah've been doing, put herself on the front lines. She wanted tah be a leader. Couple of months ago, she leaves the private school she was going to. They kind of closed down, but that's a long story that's... Not very interesting. Well, even though it was interesting, it wasn't a very clear story and with the editing that he'd have to do to tell it, it wouldn't have made any sense at all. So Paige, instead of coming to the school Ah'd been going to, or continuing on with her dream, she heads out to the coast to protect trees. Last Ah heard she was an environmental activist.   
  
He shook his head. It was... Well, it was a shock, because Ah had no idea that she was even interested in that kind of thing. Ah tracked her down, because Ah'd just needed to talk to her, and she didn't want to talk to me. She just... When Ah did get her tah speak to me, Ah told her that Ah didn't understand. She just turned to me, and looked at me with those eyes of hers, and told me that she didn't expect me to. That she was sick and tired of being what she was supposed to be, doing what was right.' She just asked me if this was what Ah really wanted to be doing, or if it was just there and RIGHT, or if mah sense of duty had tied me to it.  
  
Ah didn't understand for a while, but she's always been a smart girl, so Ah thought that Ah should pay attention to her. We grew up in a family steeped in tradition, Grace. So deep into it that we didn't really realize it. We thought that we were progressive. You accept mutants, you're progressive anywhere, he added silently. And in some ways, we were, but they blinded us to how rigid, how *stuck* we were in others.   
  
He'd had to be the good little soldier. He'd had to fight the good fight, live the Dream. He'd had to be in control, had to be after leadership. You know, it wasn't until Ah went home that Ah really got it. There was a specific way that everything had to be done, a tradition to be followed.   
  
Ah didn't realize until then that what Ah was doing then was something that Ah didn't want to be doing for the rest of my life. Hell, it wasn't anything that Ah *could* be doing for the rest of my life, unless that itself was what killed me.   
  
Ah wanted... Ah wanted something more. We fought, he said and stopped for a second. Grace placed a hand on his shoulder lightly, tentatively. Mah mother and Ah, we *fought*. Ah've been witness to some doozies in mah time, but nothing like that before. Some things were said that couldn't be undone on both parts.   
  
He spread out his arms. And here Ah am. University. Doing something new and still trying to do the something old, and Ah can't help but wonder if it doesn't mean the same thing to me any more. Ah don't like to think that Ah've killed that sense of wonder, that ability to just believe in something.  
  
He leaned back against the table, staring up at the sky again. The moon and stars were bright, bleaching the world out.  
  
Grace said, moving her hand to his jaw. Look at me for a second. He let her pull his head around. Now, I'm going to tell you something very important, okay? Just because you can question things doesn't mean that you can't believe any more. Blindly believing in everything is worse than not being able to believe in anything at all. Blind belief can cause so much harm because when you don't question, you don't think before you act. When you ask yourself Is this right?' the answer will never always be Yes,' no matter how good a cause something is, because the same things aren't right for the same people. It's thinking that they are that causes the most harm in the world.  
  
She kissed him on the forehead, lightly, and her lips were hot against his skin.  
  
There's one thing I remember. One thing I know for sure, that's kept me alive and sane through all of the years, she said, kissing his cheekbones, his jaw, and finally letting her lips rest lightly against his. Dreams aren't stable. They change from moment to moment, with each new person you meet. They change, but they don't die.  
  
  



	9. Chapter 9

*  
**The Karma Downs**  
**9/13**  
*  


  
  
Snow. Pure and white and blinding, swirling outside the glass plate windows of the Cuppa. Sam frowned at his text book, the pages beneath the words that same impeccable shade of white. he said distractedly as Grace handed him a cup of coffee and slid in across the table.  
  
The bar was nearly deserted, owing only in part to the snow storm outside. The afternoon crowd was smaller than the evening, and there were probably only ten other people scattered around the building. He could vaguely hear Kyle and Angela playing foozball in the next level. Sascha was sitting at the bar, talking to Eddie.   
  
He frowned at his book again, chewing on his coffee. He'd been out until three that morning, out with the team to neutralise a FOH gang beating on some poor guy with ice in his hair. Apparently they'd thought he'd caused the storm that had been raging for the past few days. Never mind that storms in late November were more than common.  
  
he sneezed. Spandex in a snow storm *invited* a cold. That's mah coffee.  
  
Grace smiled and took a sip. I had to get your attention somehow.  
  
It was that obvious that Ah was gone?  
  
I think that people passing by on the street noticed it.  
  
There isn't anyone passing by on the street.  
  
Well if there were, they would have noticed.  
  
Fair enough. Ah'm here. Now, could Ah please have my coffee back?  
  
She sipped it again and made a face. Please. Take it. I've tasted better coffee at truck stops advertising free pork rinds with a fill.  
  
Fine by me, he said with a shrug, reaching for his cup. Once you grew used to the coffee that Cable or Dom made, you could drink anything. Even what came out of Logan's pot.  
  
What's bothering you? she asked, fiddling with a stir stick.  
  
Nothing much. Just having a bit of trouble with some Chem.  
  
she breathed and slid the book over to her side of the table. She tapped her finger on the spine and read, then snatched the pen from his fingers and scribbled some notes. After a couple of second she shook her head and looked up. Do you mind?  
  
He shook his head. She worked at it for a time, then slid the book back over to him. How's that? she asked.  
  
He shook his head again, looking it over. You got the same thing that Ah did. He looked at it closer, noting idly that it wasn't her normal writing. It was much closer to the script that he used, he decided with a growing twinge. Same answer. Same script. Well, people could write numbers differently than they did letters.  
  
He saw her mistake then. Part way though the equation a two had somehow magically transformed to a nine. Glancing up, he saw the exact same thing in his work, at the exact same step.   
  
She could just have looked up at his work, seen it, and repeated it, he told himself. He could have missed her looking at it.  
  
Grace asked him, and it was only then that he realized he was staring at her.  
  
He shook his head. he said. Ah found where we went wrong.  
  
She was frowning at him, outlined against the window by the blowing snow outside she looked so right, so at home, so he said the first thing that came to mind.  
  
Why don't you ever wear white?   
  
Her frown deepened. Sam, you live in jeans and t-shirts. Why are you suddenly a fashion critic?  
  
Ah'm not criticising. Just asking. Because you've got the colouring to really pull it off. Ah mean, you've got pale hair but you've got enough colour in your face that it wouldn't wash you out.  
  
Do you have any idea of how odd you sound?  
  
Yes, Ah do. And since Ah've made myself sound so silly, why don't you answer the question?  
  
I just don't like the colour, she said, fiddling with the stir stick again. People expect things of a woman clad in white. I don't like people thinking they know me when they don't.  
  
Sounds reasonable.  
  
Why didn't you do your work last night anyway?  
  
Something came up, he said ruefully, rubbing the arm that one of the FOH had bitten as a last resort. And Ah don't particularly feel like finishing it right now. Come on, Ah'll let you beat me at pool.  
  
*  
  
~{ Her hands were doing things specifically designed to drive him crazy. By now she knew all of the spots that made him gasp. There was something empty about that knowledge though, as if she'd grabbed it straight from him mind instead of slowly coaxing it from his body. When had she known it? Had she always known it?   
  
//You think too much,// she whispered into his mind. //It's distracting.//  
  
//Then distract me.//  
  
She did, her hands still doing things specifically designed to drive him crazy. That was what was bothering him, he thought. They were designed. Always designed.  
  
//You seem to be enjoying them none the less,// she thought.   
  
//I am of two minds.//  
  
//Really? You don't seem to be using either to control your body.//  
  
//Oh, c'mon. Give me a break.//  
  
Mental smile. //If I give you a break, then I don't get to have any fun.// Still doing things to drive him crazy. He was usually pretty far gone by this point.  
  
Work it to his advantage. Grin to hide the thoughts. A question brushed his mind just before he grabbed her around the waist and turned over, pinning her to the mattress with his weight. Her hands stopped doing specifically designed things and he smiled. It was predatorial and he could feel it.   
  
Her mind against his was suddenly as still as her body and he kissed her hard. It was her reflex kiss he got back, hard and demanding. He could feel her mind switch into action, thoughts splintering everywhere and she tried to stop the kiss but he wouldn't let her. Something inside of him snapped. It was a little thing, tied in to her in some way.   
  
//thisisn'ttheplan// a voice whispered. //thisisn'ttheplanatall// The little thing snapped and splintered, digging into other parts of him and with their minds pressed as close as their bodies they dug into her as well.  
  
//He's cute when he's// cut off. Strange. Not his voice or hers.  
  
//Old mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone// one laughed. Sang //When she bent over the dog he took over and showed her a bone of his own.// It may have been his, but he was beyond caring.  
  
Her eyes were open wide, doe bright and when he looked into them they shattered and he was falling falling falling as they turned and twisted, changed colours and each became another set, different colours around him and then there were two of him. Two. One on the bed, so full of something darker than need, only that had never been him. It was someone else, someone else entirely only they were bound, and there was him in the corner, him fading away in the shattered eyes, among the shards and he was walking on ice. No snow this time because even that barrier had been stripped away. Only maybe it hadn't been a barrier for him as much as for the wind, because the wind was raging, tearing at him until he thought that it would wear away at his very bones.  
  
There was a warning in his head, the opposite of the pull from before. It was a scream, a stop sign, a sense of foreboding and it told him to turn back, to turn back and run.   
  
He couldn't. He kept walking because this time he knew what he would find in the ice and he needed it to be something different, something other than what he knew was coming. His feet remembered his path and they drew him onwards even as his mind curled in on itself under the onslaught. The wind died suddenly and he looked up, only realizing that he'd been blind when he could see again. There was a wall behind him and he suddenly knew where the snow had gone, because it was in the wind and the wind was a wall around him, curling away from him in a circle. The eye of the storm, he thought suddenly as he made his way across the ice.  
  
The ice.  
  
Clear ice beneath his feet, screaming at him to leave as loudly as the voice in his head, warning him of the dangers that lay beneath, and he kept on walking. He could see the object of his search up ahead and the voices in his head redoubled. His feet began to drag but he kept on going.   
  
White and gold beneath his feet, twisting and spinning, ebbing and flowing with the current beneath the thin layer of ice he stood on.  
  
White and gold, white and gold. She doesn't wear white because it makes her feel trapped. It belongs to someone else. It belonged to something completely different in the beginning, but someone else took it, claimed it to show that she controlled it and now *she* doesn't wear white.  
  
The world changed, shifted and the ice was in front of his face, white and gold dizzy and the voices screamed as he reached for the ice. Violet lines running through everything, grids and planes glowing.  
  
And, of course, the ice was no more or less real than he was so his hands passed through it. It was cold and it bit at his hands and arms and skin, sucking away all the heat in his body and all the heat he'd ever felt before until all that was left was the cold. He kept moving, kept moving because it was GRACE, it was always Grace only   
  
[What's your name?] [Would you believe Shard?]  
  
[I know *who* you are. The rest; where you've been, what you've done before, they don't matter.]  
  
she was someone less and someone more and it was all he could do to keep a hold of her because something was dragging her back, holding her there and she was drowning, drowning beneath the ice and   
  
He   
Had  
To  
Get  
Her  
  
O  
u  
t  
  
Something twisted and they were on the ice and it wasn't there and it was glowing lines and they were above the world and she took one long, shuddering breath and...}~  
  
Sam woke to howling winds, blowing snow, and a warm, empty impression in the bed beside him. Grace was gone.  
  
*  
  
He spent the day searching the city for her. The streets were white and mostly empty. Every once and awhile another vehicle would lumber out of the storm at him, or he'd pass a brave, trundled up soul making their way across the street with their head down against the snow. As he neared each one he'd slow his truck a little bit, searching for something familiar, but even before he'd gotten a good look something would tell him that it wasn't her.  
  
He looked at the university campus, even though it was a Saturday. And he went to the movies, and every other place he could think of. He started to feel even more on-edge as the light penetrating the storm started to fade because something told him that he had to find her today. He didn't know what had happened, not exactly, but he knew that if he didn't figure it out today then he probably never would.  
  
He rolled into The Cuppa around dark. He'd been saving it as a last resort because if she wasn't anywhere else, and she wasn't there, then he'd never be able to find her. It would feel like too much of a full cycle: Where they'd met. Where it would end. It was /The last chance for all of us/ something whispered.  
  
The lights were bright but the wood panelling made the bar seem strangely dark after he'd spent so long in a cocoon of white. He searched the bar, eyes flickering through the scarce smattering of people. No Grace. With her hair, she wasn't exactly easy to miss.  
  
With a sigh he pulled a stool to the bar, and sat flicking pennies into the tip jar. The barkeep - it wasn't Eddie, not today, something he wasn't sure if he was grateful for - wandered over to him but Sam just asked for a coffee. He wasn't feeling quite upset enough to get drunk before getting behind the wheel of his truck, let alone in weather like this. And he'd always hated to fly in snow.  
  
He sat there, listening to murmured conversation, muffled wind and radio, and the roll and click of pool balls hitting the pocket. He drank his coffee. It was bitter. He didn't realize how soothing the sound of the pool going on upstairs was until it suddenly ceased. It was a while before it resumed again, rhythmical and measured. Not the sound of two people playing, he realized, but of one person sinking ball after ball.  
  
He pushed his stool back from the bar and rose, eyes craning to see the pool player as he headed to the stairs that separated the levels. They thudded beneath his feet.   
  
Her back was to him and she was in the far corner but he recognized her nonetheless, in the same way he'd known that each figure he passed on the street was not her. he said, mouth suddenly dry.  
  
She ignored him as he leaned back against the wall, just kept sinking balls in that mechanical way until the cue ball bounced off of a red striped one and knocked the eight ball in. Game over. There were still five balls on the table. She continued to ignore him as she scooped the rest of the balls out of the side pockets. He held out the triangle to her and she took it without as much as looking at him. She lined it up and broke, balls scattering over the table.  
  
he started. She knocked a green ball into the side pocket. Grace, please. Ah don't know what's going on. Just... Just talk tah me. Talk tah me, please? He stood there and watched her sink the balls, waiting, waiting, but she didn't even look up at him. It was like there was ice between them, a layer thicker than what there had been on the astral plane.   
  
Ah had a dream that you were drowning, he said finally.  
  
She looked up at him from where she was bent over the pool table, her hair swinging wildly. Her eyes were blank, somehow not even really *real.* I had a dream that I was floating, safe and protected. I was safe because there was ice to keep the demons away.  
  
You're a telepath. It wasn't a question and he tried not to let the surprise show on his face. Only it wasn't really a surprise. Little things about her, like how she knew just what to say to turn the conversation. How she'd made the *exact* same mistakes as he had when she tried to help him with his work.  
  
Telepathy is such a simple, pat thing, she said, continuing to move around the table. She wasn't looking at him but at least she was speaking to him. Think about the number of mutants who are telepaths compared to those who shoot beams from their eyes. Or control magnetism. A ball disappeared.   
  
It's not statistically probable, but people are so used to it... I'm not a telepath. Not in the truest sense of the word. Or at least I wasn't, not in the beginning. It's a manifestation of something else. It is in so many cases. But the world sees telepath' and treats accordingly.   
  
She didn't look at him, but he could read the harshness in the way she lined up the cue. Xavier, the others, they just deal with the symptoms. They don't even bother to look for the real root of it because telepathy is such a common ailment. Why do you think so many telepaths never learn to control it? What works for a true mind reader doesn't work for someone else, especially if that someone has a completely different mutation.  
  
She still wasn't looking at him. Did she expect him to point and shout Freak'?  
  
What can you do, then? he asked softly, cautiously.  
  
I know things, she replied as she went back to shooting pool. I just... I *know*. What people are thinking or feeling is only part of it. How things work. What drives people. Sometimes even what's going to happen to them, except I can't control any of it and when you don't figure out what it is and people die...  
  
And you don't want to be able to? Is that why you don't remember things about yourself?  
  
It kills a part of you. When you don't know and can't help, or you know exactly why people are hurting you, only you know it too late to stop yourself from getting hurt. There are some things that you don't want to be able to understand, Sam, believe me on that. And it kills some part of you every time, only I don't expect you to be able to understand that.  
  
he said, drawing a deep breath. Ah don't. Ah want to, but Ah know that Ah can't. But Ah know some people who would.  
  
She looked at him then, and her eyes were still startlingly disconnected, so unreal. You're going to tell me that you're a mutant, too. That out in Westchester there are people who can help me. That you're even going to says that you really don't understand.  
  
He shut his mouth. She knew. Of course she knew. She'd even said Xavier and the others...' Help me understand, he said. *Why* were there things that you didn't remember?  
  
I needed to be someone else, she said simply, returning to her game. I hated who I'd become.  
  
he asked gently.  
  
It's hard to explain. I know things. And I can change some things. Neither's steady, really something I can control. Whenever I've really needed to *be* something, or someone, I've been able to. Three more balls hit the pocket. If I needed to be harder to survive, I could be. When I needed to be able to control someone, I think I may have become a telepath. If I needed some way to not be hurt, I wouldn't be. But it always came with a price and it wasn't one I could pay any more. I just needed to be someone else. And I was, Sam. Nine ball in the corner pocket. I dreamed that I was protected. That there was something keeping me safe from everyone else.  
  
You were drowning, he whispered.  
  
I may have been. But I was away from everything that I needed to be. Ice may take away all feeling, but it stops you from feeling the hurt. A green ball disappeared.  
  
You ice a wound, but you have to put the ice pack away before you get frost bite. Before you lose that part of you. Hurt heals. Maybe this is what you needed. A break while the rest of it starts to heal. But you had tah come up some time, Grace. You had to surface.  
  
Some of it heals, Sam. But the worst you've ever done is skin your knees. Another ball rolled into the corner pocket.  
  
You had tah start breathing again some time, he said, and when she looked at him her eyes were real again but they were old and tired and aching. When she dropped his gaze he felt shaky inside. There were only five balls left on the table.  
  
Well, I'm breathing now. I'm awake and breathing. Four balls.  
  
Ah told you once that Ah didn't care what you'd done in the past, what you'd left behind. Ah still don't. Three balls. Grace, Ah know who you are. None of the rest matters.  
  
She laughed bitterly and shot once more. You know who I am? Two balls and the cue. You're more right and more wrong than you could ever imagine.  
  
Look, just talk tah me. Please. Ah promise tah listen to it all.  
  
I know you would, she said, and her voice low. A ball skittered across the green of the table and hit the pocket. And if you turned from me I wouldn't be able to take it, and if you didn't, I wouldn't be able to take it for your sake, because you've been awfully good to me, Sam.  
  
She looked at him one last time with her eyes bright, then she turned her attention back to the table. The eight ball and an orange striped one were sitting side by side in the middle. Tricky shot, she said, trying to line them up.   
  
She lined up and drew back her cue and he could feel her focusing all of her energy into this one shot. The cue ball hit them with with a resounding smack and they rocketed towards the side pocket. They bounced off the side and crashed into each other, rebounding back and forth and gradually slowing.   
  
They watched, almost hypnotized and the two balls flashed back and forth, working their ways towards the pocket. Motion subsided and the orange striped ball looked like it was going to make it in, but it ran out of momentum right on the brink. The eight ball, following on its heel, slowly, every so slowly tipped in.  
  
Grace let out a breath. That's it, she said. Game over.  
  
Sam sighed and started pulling balls out of the pockets. It's not so bad, he said, somewhat at a loss.  
  
I guess all streaks end, she said. I should have seen it coming. Good things end. All things end.  
  
He pulled the rest of the balls out. You'll win the next one,' he was going to say as he stared down at the green felt, but there were lips on his forehead suddenly, a brief kiss full of all the affection he'd ever wished she'd shown, and she was gone.  
  
*  
  
The estate was dark when he pulled in through the gates. The snow had stopped falling and the mansion loomed in the moonlight, a sentinel watching with a hundred eyes. Inside, it felt deserted. The air was still and heavy. But he could just have been projecting his state of mind onto his surroundings. He threw his coat in the closet and his boots in the corner. The thud echoed hollowly. There was just enough moonlight coming in through the windows that he could see where he was going so he made his way carefully up the stairs, wincing a little at the creaks and groans.  
  
he hollered.  
  
Bobby hissed.  
  
Yah scared the crap out of me! Sam exclaimed, heart beating fast.   
  
  
  
Sam hissed. Bobby, what the hell are yah doing? Sitting around in the dark where a body could trip over you.  
  
Bobby looked down at his hands. Nothing, really, he said, and there was something in his voice that Sam thought that he should have been able to recognize, but he was tired and not in the best of moods.  
  
Fine then, Sam replied shortly, and started up the rest of the stairs.  
  
Look, Sam... Bobby said, grasping at the other man with his voice. I just... I need to talk to someone.  
  
Talk to Hank. Ah can't do this right now, Bobby. Ah can't.  
  
Bobby replied curtly.   
  
Sam started down the hall then paused and turned back. Look, Ah'm sorry, but Ah've got problems of my own right. Ah can't be of any help tah you.  
  
Bobby turned to look at him and nodded slowly. Yeah. I guess you do. Just... Do you ever feel like you're going crazy?  
  
Sam paused. he said. He paused and shook his head. Ah kind of feel like it right now, actually. Bobby?  
  
  
  
Go talk to Hank in the morning, okay?  
  
Bobby inclined his head slightly and returned to staring down the stairs as Sam started down the hall.   
  
He was almost at his room when he shook his head. He should've been able to listen and offer what little help he could. He turned to head back when he saw Emma drifting down the hall. She was gliding easily, her clothes glowing faintly in the moonlight, her white hair swinging easily. She walked down a few steps to stand beside Bobby. As she sat her eyes swung around to capture Sam. They splintered and whirled before they released him.   
  
He staggered the rest of the way to his room, slightly stunned. All he could see was a ghost in the hall, mockingly whispering Game over.'  
  



	10. Chapter 10

*  
**The Karma Downs**  
**10/13**  
*  


  
  
Oh, for pete's sake... Ma'am, I'm trying to *help* you!   
  
Sam threw the woman to the ground as a red blast of light screamed over their heads. She matched the scream with her own. He clamped a hand down over her mouth and her eyes grew wide.   
  
Look, Ah'm sorry about this, Sam hissed, but Ah need to get you out of here, and you're not exactly helping me. She flinched and clutched her cheque book as something to one side crashed and they were peppered with slivers of ice.   
  
Now, Ah'm going to take mah hand away from your mouth, and you're not going tah do anything tah draw attention to us, now are you? She shook her head and trembled as he slowly removed his hand.   
  
He hated being stuck nurseguarding. It made sense, though. His blast field could effectively protect bystanders, even ones as downright aggravating as this one was being. He sighed and scooped her into his arms, holding her close to his body to keep her as close inside the potential blast field as he could. He'd fire up if there was something coming at him.   
  
They made it rather easily to the lobby and out past the ATMs. He suspected Jean or Emma was turning attention away from them. They were almost down the stairs when a body exploded out through a plate glass window, spraying shards out over the barrier of police cars and into the assembled crowd. He blasted away from it automatically and the woman in his arms resumed her screaming. He landed with a thud beside one of the police cars and the woman scrambled violently away from him, pushing at him with all of her strength.   
  
He let her go and raised a hand at the police woman who caught her and handed her off to the paramedics. Her hand drifted in what Sam could only hope was an unconscious gesture to her holster, and he turned and headed back to the bank. This time he just flew in through the now-empty window, sparing a glance down at the still figure on the pavement. It was one of the would be robbers.   
  
This should have been a cake walk. A couple of beta and gamma mutants knocking over a bank. They should have had them pinned in no time flat. Unfortunately, one of the beta's happened to possess a mutation which allowed him to enhance the mutations of his cohorts to alpha level.   
  
The police woman's face intruded into his mind. Later he would be able to tell himself that she hadn't resembled Grace in the least, but for now he just pushed it to the side with a shake of his head. There were more important things going on at the moment.   
  
That shake of his head and his blast field were the only things that saved it from being taken off by a rock flung towards him. He spared a glance back for the crowd behind him, but no one seemed willing to admit to the projectile.   
  
These were the days he longed for finals.   
  
*   
  
There were no answers in the bottom of a bottle. It was something he had learned from watching teammates and friends search through one after another. It didn't make it any less tempting to check for himself.   
  
He sighed and stared down at the bottom of the glass. The only thing that greeted him was his own reflection. His eyes mocked him.   
  
the barkeep asked Sam and he shook his head. It was a man who he recognized by sight but not by name. Eddie had gone off-shift about half an hour before. He'd clapped Sam sympathetically on the back - word travelled fast even when you weren't living with a group of people who could read minds. Sam had been on his first drink then.   
  
Hell, he was only just finished with his third. He didn't like the way his face looked beneath a thin puddle of rye.   
  
Digging through the pockets of his jeans he managed to find a couple of bills, so he threw them onto the bar and untangled his jacket from the mess on the coat rack. He turned up his collar as he stepped outside. There were Christmas lights and decorations strung up along the street. They were bright and garish, dipping and flickering in the December wind. A Santa Claus sat atop the roof of the grocer's down the road, one great chubby arm raised in greeting. Ho-ho-ho. It's December 2, come and get your turkey. You've got your shopping done (Don't you?) because we've been reminding you since Halloween, but you should start stockpiling the food. Make sure that everything will be perfect for the holidays and you better fucking have a good time because it tis the season, after all.   
  
Sam wandered aimlessly through the streets, hands stuffed deep within his pockets. He was lost in his own thoughts and the steady ache that the crunching of the snow beneath his feet brought when he heard harsh breathing. He paused in his tracks, straining his ears, realizing for the first time that he'd gradually veered away from areas where people were out. The street was silent, the Christmas decorations faded and lighting the area with a forced, cheerless sort of flickering.   
  
It could have just been a pair of erstwhile lovers. He heard the broken breathing again and this time it was punctuated with a fleshy sort of thud he was all too familiar with and a weak groan. His feet had started to move before he'd even gotten the sounds properly straight in his head and he was running, rounding a corner to a brick alleyway, his shadow racing before him.   
  
He skidded to a stop. Four hulking figures were moving in near silence in the dim light, their breathing casting ragged plumes into the air. There was blood on the snow and someone was lying on the ground, moaning. When they stopped kicking at the dark bundle he realized that he'd hollered at them.   
  
One of the men separated out from the circle, moving easily towards Sam. The leader of the pack, he'd bet. He moved with the strained grace of a fighter with too much muscle. There was a smooth pink scar cutting his cheek in two. I think you're wanting to keep on moving, he said, wiping a hand across his mouth.   
  
Sam stood his ground. Looks like a fair fight, he said. Four big, strong guys like you... Why don't you try someone who can fight back?   
  
The man laughed at that, his face twisting darkly. He took another step forward. He had half a foot and at least sixty pounds on Sam. he asked. His grin was somehow scarier than Sinister's most menacing expression, maybe because there was something horribly *impersonal* about it. You've got guts, kid. So I'm going to give you one last chance. Leave. Behind him, one of his cronies kicked at the body on the ground and the head lolled back into the light.   
  
Sam had a lot of practice identifying people beneath layers of blood and grime, broken bones and bruises.   
  
he whispered. Some part of him fell numb at that. It wasn't a jumping in, or some drug dealer caught on the wrong turf, and it wasn't some kid with an extra limb or purple hair who he didn't know, it was *Eddie*, Eddie who always had an ear or even just a grasshopper for anyone who was hurting.   
  
The man in front of him must have signalled because the three thugs were on him in an instant. The part of him that was numb disappeared as his head crashed into the pavement. He was angry then, angry that these people would attack his friend for the money in his wallet or the Italian blood that showed in his face or the fact that he happened to like men or whatever had drawn their attention.   
  
Angry at the people in the world who saw MUTANT and thought attacker, robber, rapist, degenerate, freak, while sending people like these back out onto the street to beat bartenders half to death in the snow, who threw rocks and worse when you were trying to help them, who resented you for saving their lives. Angry at Grace, because she was so sure of his inability to understand that she would run from him, shut him out and shun him.   
  
Angry and Scott and Jean and the show they put on instead of dealing until they couldn't *see* anything, everything that was wrong around them, at Bobby and his recent attempts to show how grown up he was by being an ass and not listening to anyone, and angry at himself for not being able to fix things, to figure out what he was supposed to be, what he had to be.   
  
He was on his back so he let one of his assailants charge him, bringing up his leg and using the man's momentum to throw him head first into the wall. There was a sickening thunk and the man sort of oozed down the wall to fall in a boneless heap. Sam flipped to his feet lightly, fists ready. The man he'd spoken to faded off to the side and the other two thugs circled him predatorily.   
  
Come on, he growled, spreading his arms out. Which of you is next? There was a red light behind it all. He needed to make it hurt. He needed someone else to be hurting.   
  
They looked at each other and came at him as one. He let the one behind him grab his arms and kicked the other, leg snapping out to take him in the solar plexus. When he doubled over he continued forward and Sam straightened him out by driving his knee into his chin. His head snapped back and he staggered back into a trash can.   
  
The grip the other man had on his arms was elementary. Usually used for nothing more than holding a warm body still while another beat on it. If he'd used a hold like that in training Magneto would have sighed; and Cable would have broken it and kicked his ass so he wouldn't forget.   
  
Sam didn't waste time twisting from side to side. He threw his weight forward, noticing as he did that the other man was heading back towards him with a grim look in his eyes. The man who was holding him was thrown off balance and Sam reached back with his leg, hooked him around the ankle and pulled. As he'd hoped, the man released him to use his arms to break his fall.   
  
He moved just out of arm's reach of them, careful to keep his body between them and Eddie. They were bigger than him, and they were stronger, but they weren't used to people who could really fight back. Bishop was bigger and so was Sabretooth. Logan and Hank were stronger, and pretty well everyone he knew was a better fighter. The simulations he faced down in the danger room were all three, and tended to have handy powers to attack you with.   
  
These were people he could beat.   
  
He started to play with them then, play with them in a way that he'd always detested in fighters. If you could beat them, do it and get it over with. No need to draw things out.   
  
But ducking and weaving in the cold December air, breath exploding from him in white plumes while his friend lay behind him bleeding into the snow, he didn't particularly care.   
  
He would have been hard pressed to say how long they fought, only that it wasn't long enough. He ducked at just the right moment and a fist passed over his head to take out the man coming at him from behind. Then there were only the two of them and he saw fear in the other man's eyes. He smiled easily, enjoying it, because right now nothing could hurt him, and he drove his fist at the other man's head with all of the anger he had bottled up inside. He staggered backwards, hand to his head, and slowly toppled like a felled tree.   
  
There was still adrenaline running cold through his veins. The first two down were starting to regain their feet, weakly grasping at the brick walls of the alley or trash bins and he turned back to Eddie, who was scrambling back to his, his eyes wide with fear.   
  
Time slowed down as Sam turned his head back to see the man with the scarred face striding from the shadows, reaching into his coat to pull...   
  
Something.   
  
Gun.   
  
Had to be a gun.   
  
Shit.   
  
He threw himself at Eddie, trying to wrap his blast field around the both of them. He winced at the retort. The second strike as the bullet rebounded off was reassuring but all that the noise and the glowing field did to the scarred man was harden the hatred in his eyes. There was another shot and this time Sam heard three distinct ricochets, picking off the edges of the field. The man strode further forward, bringing the gun back to bear on his motionless prey. There was cool, impersonal hatred in his eyes /He's just doing his duty. Ridding the world of fruits and freaks/ and something inside of Sam snapped.   
  
A moment of complete clarity. What was the good in being able to generate combustion reactions if you didn't use it? Air explodes, right. Letting him fly. He flew because he concentrated it below his feet.   
  
It went through his mind in a fraction of a second and as the man started to pull the trigger, Sam lit up. Threw the explosion that would have lifted him into the air to his hand and let it detonate forward.   
  
It lit up the alley, throwing everything into sharp relief. The man's arm snapped up with the force of it, the gun flying through the air to land in a mangled heap in the snow where it began to steam and hiss. He slowly stood, and Sam could see the burns on his hands.   
  
The adrenaline left him in one rush. The sweat on his brow was rapidly cooling and he was chilled.   
  
The man turned to look at the wreck of his gun, then back at Sam. His eyes were still full of that impersonal hate. I'll get you, they said as Sam screamed Get out of here! They told Sam that this wasn't a retreat even as the scarred man faded back into the shadows. I'll get you. Not today, but I will, they warned The two others who were fully roused were scrambling towards the exit of the alley. This was more than they'd bargained for. They left their still unconscious comrade lying in the snow.   
  
Eddie was on his feet, weaving unsteadily towards the still body. Shit, man, he said to Sam, and gave the man on the ground kick in the ribs before collapsing onto the snow.   
  
Sam was at his side in an instant, his teeth chattering. With cool, professional hands he checked Eddie's injuries. All things considered, they could be worse. He'd both had and had to treat worse, actually. All of the X-Men knew some field medicine. It tended to improve life expectancy. Most of Eddie's seemed to look worse than they were. Bruises, a black eye, and a split lip, a minor scalp wound that was bleeding as much as any head wound ever did.   
  
Some bruised ribs, Sam though. Maybe one or two cracked. No internal injuries that he could identify. He had broken and bloodied nails and a boxer's fracture in his right hand. He'd put up a fight for himself, at the least. Sam gently lifted one of his eyelids to check his pupils and that seemed to rouse him some.   
  
How many fingers? Sam asked, holding up three.   
  
Aww, man, you know I have a hard time counting above ten, he lisped. His pupils were close to the same size, so he might be lucky on that count. He tried to rise to his feet and Sam supported him as he started to topple again. he said, before he passed out again.   
  
Sam stood there in the snow, shivering. He should take Eddie to the hospital, but Eddie wanted to go to his brother's, and none of his injuries seemed life threatening. Ah, shit, he said, then picked Eddie up and flew above roof level.   
  
It was only a few minutes before they touched down on the balcony of Kyle's apartment but it felt like longer because flying silently always took a lot out of him, even when he wasn't carrying a man larger than he was. The doors that led into the apartment would be locked, he told himself, and then he'd figure something else out, something involving a doctor. But they were open so he stepped in out of the cold, just for a bit, to warm Eddie up.   
  
He'd barely settled the other man down on the couch when he heard a key in the door. He sprung into a defensive stance out of instinct, every ache and blow on his body making itself apparent, but it wasn't an enemy exploding through the door, it was Angela, her normally calm countenance bright with worry. Sascha and Kyle trailed through behind her, looking confused. They stopped when they saw Eddie laid out on the couch.   
  
Oh my God, Sascha whispered. Angela was all ready hovering over Eddie, checking his injuries with clinical professionalism, and Sam remembered that she was a student at the medical facility, a few months away from her residency. The door clicked shut behind him and suddenly Sam found himself hurled up against the wall.   
  
He was sick and tired of being manhandled and before he'd even realized what he was doing he'd thrown his attacker across the room. Kyle crashed into a lamp, knocking it to the ground. The sound of breaking glass was loud.   
  
Sascha had her hand on Kyle's arm and was talking to him in hushed whispers as he scrambled back to his feet. Ah didn't do it, Sam said simply, thinking of what they must have seen when they'd come back. Him, ready to fight, by Eddie's beaten figure.   
  
Yeah? Then who?   
  
The scuffle must have brought Eddie around again because he groaned and tried to sit up. Angela pushed him gently but firmly back to the couch as all attention in the room latched onto him. Kyle was by his brother's side in an instant. Is he going to be okay?   
  
Angela nodded, and repeated most of Sam's diagnosis - with the exception that he had, in fact, escaped cracked ribs - as Eddie protested weakly that he was right there.   
  
What happened? Kyle demanded.   
  
I told a gang of teenyboppers that Brittany Spears is seventy-five percent plastic, Eddie said weakly. Okay, maybe this isn't the time for jokes.   
  
It seemed to Sam that it was the perfect time for jokes.   
  
I was jumped by some thugs on the way over here from work, Eddie said. Four of them. I fought, but there were more of them than there were of me. Sam found us and he stepped in. He probably saved my life. One of them had a gun.   
  
Kyle hissed. Sascha went to hug Eddie, looked at his bruises, and kissed his forehead instead. She wrapped Sam in a gentle hug. Thank you, she whispered. That was very brave. He shied away from her a bit. It hadn't been. Not really.   
  
Sorry, man, Kyle said and clapped him on the back. It just...   
  
It's all right. Ah know what it must have looked like.   
  
Angela appeared again, carrying tensors and iodine and aloe vera. She started to clean out Eddie's wounds.   
  
Kyle reached for the phone. We have to call the police, he said.   
  
Panic suddenly flooded through Sam. Yah can't, he said, pressing his hand over the cradle. What if they caught the people who'd done it? A very good chance with the burns on the scarred man's hands. He'd need a doctor and they'd spin a story of being attacked by a mutant with explosive powers, and only defending themselves. Who would the police believe?   
  
Kyle looked at him dumbly. My brother was attacked by men who beat him and pulled a gun. I'd say we have to call the police.   
  
Eddie said, struggling to rise from the couch again. You can't call the police. Sam looked at him with grateful and apprehensive eyes.   
  
Sascha was sitting on the edge of couch and she grasped his hands, only to release them when he hissed in pain. They all looked over at him, Sam noticing for the first time that Eddie's hands and part of his face were bright red, (His exposed skin, something whispered) as if he'd been sunburned. Sam's stomach plummeted. We have to call the police, Sascha was saying. Look at yourself. They even burned your hands. She stopped. Eddie, how did they burn your hands?   
  
They didn't, Sam said simply. Backlash from the explosion when he'd disabled the man with the gun. He hadn't been stretching his blast field out, not then.   
  
Kyle and Sascha were looking back and forth between the two men, something building in their eyes. Angela was just methodically treating Eddie's wounds.   
  
Kyle finally said. How did you you beat off four huge men by yourself?   
  
He wanted to shrug. Just lucky, I guess. I have a black belt. I took them by surprise. I don't know; I just did. Anything but I'm a trained fighter who goes against worse than that almost every day.'   
  
If one of them had a gun, why didn't he shoot it?   
  
He shot it, Sam said.   
  
And he missed?   
  
No. He didn't miss.   
  
Sascha looked at him. Then how are you... How did they burn Eddie, Sam? How?   
  
Sam exhaled. Shook his head and ran his hands through his hair. They didn't. Ah did. It was an accident, when Ah disabled the gun. Backlash.   
  
Sascha and Kyle were just looking at him then, looking while Angela wrapped a tensor around Eddie's ribs and he hissed in pain.   
  
We can't call the police, Sam whispered. He couldn't get into the registry. He couldn't.   
  
We can't, Eddie repeated, his eyes empty. They were out to give a fruit a beating and they were attacked by a mutant. How do you think that that will go down? You think that *they* will be the ones in trouble?   
  
There was silence then, only punctuated by the dial tone from the phone and the muffled sounds of a party happening in an adjoining apartment. Kyle threw the receiver as hard as he could. It caught on the cord and swung back. This is it? he asked, spinning to face Sam.   
  
Sam was ready for it. For the hatred or the disgust of the fear, but what Kyle said was This all it was?   
  
Sascha shook her head. We knew that there was something you were keeping close to your chest, but this was all it was?   
  
Sam opened his mouth. What do you yah mean That's it? This is all it was?'   
  
I mean, said Kyle with flashing eyes, is that what you couldn't trust us with is that you're a mutant? That's all?   
  
It wasn't all, not really. But the rest of it was tied into that so that the only thing that he really should have been expected to say was By the way, I can set a fire underneath my own ass.' And he wondered if this was why Grace hadn't been able to trust him, when she'd known that he was a mutant but couldn't bring himself to tell her. He'd been mad at her for not saying anything about herself, but the things he was hiding would have made it so, so hard for her. He didn't have a foot left to stand on.   
  
Kyle said, and his voice was full of cold anger that in its lack of impersonality was just as scary as the scarred man's had been. My tenth grade girlfriend was orange and had compound eyes. I'm an Italian Jew dating a Korean girl from a strict family, and my brother is gay. One of my best friends is a black girl from a ghetto studying to be a doctor. You think that I don't know about prejudice? You think that any of us don't know all about it?   
  
he said. Ah've just... When yah get such a bad reaction so many times, you get wary.   
  
So you assumed that because other people were intolerant, we were too?   
  
Kyle, stop this! Sascha cried. Both of you, just stop it.   
  
It's not like that! Yah don't know what it's like, always having tah guard who you are.   
  
But it *is* like that, Sam. You just assumed that we wouldn't understand. You just assumed that because we were ordinary humans, we were bigots.   
  
Ah didn't! But he had, hadn't he?   
  
Sam, that's just the same as saying all mutants hate humans. Instead of making a decision based on who we were... If you don't know me, or Sascha, or Angela, or Eddie better than that, then you don't know us at all. And I don't know if I want to know you.   
  
Sascha was between them then, and it was only with her hand on his chest and one on Kyle's that he realized they'd been steadily edging towards each other. Just stop this, okay? We're all on edge. Just... You've both said things. Just... Just stop this.   
  
Kyle spun on his heel, kneeling at his brother's side. How's he doing? he asked Angela.   
  
Ah don't need this, Sam snarled. If yah can't understand why Ah was leery of telling yah, take a good look at this conversation.   
  
Kyle didn't even glance over at him as Sam stalked off towards the balcony. He needed to get some space between him and the earth and everyone who crawled its surface. It was only when he went to slide open the door that he realized his hands were shaking uncontrollably. The catch refused to move for him and he snarled.   
  
A hand stole in front of him, and he tried his best to smile at Sascha. She followed him silently out onto the balcony, wrapping her arms around herself against the cold.   
  
He's just mad, you know, she said quietly. He's afraid for his brother and he's mad that he let that happen to him. Eddie may be older, but Kyle's always been the one looking out for him.   
  
he replied curtly. Doesn't mean he has tah take it out on me.   
  
You know why he's mad at you, don't you? You understand?   
  
Sam shook his head. Ah'm a mutant. Ah didn't tell him.   
  
There's more to it than that, but you're going to have to figure it out on your own. We never want to see our own blind spots, Sam, but you may have to.   
  
He nodded curtly. Look, Ah'm sorry, but Ah'm sore and tired and Ah just need a bit of time.   
  
I understand, she said, and hugged him quickly. She asked hesitantly.   
  
  
  
Can I ask you something?   
  
Bad choice of words. He winced at the sudden silence.   
  
What is it that you... That you can do?   
  
He grinned, because there was only honest curiosity in her eyes. he said, moving to the edge of the balcony, hopping up onto the railing and balancing easily. He knew he was showing off, but he just needed something bright in his day.   
  
Sam, be careful!   
  
Don't worry, Ah know what I'm doing, he assured her, spread his arms and fell backwards.   
  
she cried, running to the railing, her hair falling forwards as she searched the ground for a glimpse of him.   
  
He let himself fall for a short space before lighting up. Every time he did it it was like beating gravity, and it made him feel more alive than he did at any other time. Sascha laughed as he soared up.   
  
she called. He blew her a kiss and tried to forget his problems in the city, spread out below him like silicon chips, lit up with Christmas decorations, even if for a while.   
  
*   
  
She could feel his eyes burning into her skin. There was always that something broken between them, tracking them, binding them to each other. He needed her in a way that was more than need. He heard her in the wind and saw her in the snow.   
  
And only he, with his eyes devouring her, saw as she become more and less real, as what she was flickered and changed.   
  
he whispered from behind her, wrapping his arms around her bare waist. The hall lights were dim. Wonderful thing about Emma. So much skin even when you didn't have her clothes off.   
  
Her surprise bounced in his head and he soaked it up. She hadn't felt him coming because the thing broken between them tied them too close. He could feel her surprise bouncing around in his head because she hadn't been able to consciously note him.   
  
It was a thing he barely understood. He trailed kisses along her neck and she arched her head back for him. //thisisn'ttheplan//someonesaid,butitwasshutout.   
  
She slid out of his arms then, pulling away without a look back, as if that was as much of his touch as she could take. He reached after her, grabbed for her arm. Her skin was cold and when she turned to him she was the ghost in the hall. The something broken spoke to him then, whispered in his mind that he had better take his hand off of her because this was more real than anything between them, the look in her eyes as they fractured.   
  
He stood there, numb, listening to the whispers in his head, something dark building in him from the need and his ache to be be treated as everyone else and and the something broken in him.   
  
How much of this is real? He whispered, voice hoarse and low.   
  
How much? How much of this is real? Howhowhowhowhow much?   
  
Skin cool beneath his fingers, eyes burning into him. [How much of this is real? How much of us?] he asks again.   
  
Eyes cold now. Her eyes are all he can see and he thinks he preferred it when they were burning.   
  
[Reality is such a fickle thing.] [Reality is what you make of it.] [Reality is just a word for the world conceptions we create.] [Nothing is ever real.]   
  
He's as hot as she is cold. Strange, because he is the one who can truly be ice. He kisses her then, kisses her hard because he needs something real and he needs her touch and he needs something to anchor him here. He pushes her back against the wall with the strength of it, and there's blood in his mouth. His lip or hers is split and he kisses her harder, deeper as it courses between them, needing, searching, and when it's not found it all circles back to him and he kisses her harder.   
  
He hears footsteps in the hall and he finds that they're leaning against a door so he lets his hand find the nob and they spill inside. It swings shut behind them. It's an empty room. Furniture is draped in white dust cloths, curtains white, white as the carpet they fall to. The something dark and building breaks open because he needs this, he *needs* it, even though some part of him realizes that it will likely destroy the something that is all ready broken.   
  
She's still, so curiously still beneath him but he barely notices because her mind is racing and her eyes are splintering and fracturing. It's then that he notices that the white that holds her together isn't so true, against the white carpet and dustcoths, the curtains that billow even without a breeze around them. //nonononottheplannottheplan/this is wrong can't do this/You're letting him why are you letting him// Because white is every colour that's how you get white. Every colour in equal amounts and her white is starting to break down even as her eyes are, fracturing and splintering into each component colour and she is all of them, is all even as she is white.   
  
A thought brushes past him, a plea, a forbiddance, but it's brushed aside by another and she doesn't fight him, even as somewhere someone sings a lullaby he cannot hear but knows the words to all the same.   
  
And the world fades and twists and looses its cohesion even as white shatters.   
  



	11. Chapter 11

*  
**The Karma Downs**  
**11/13**  
*  


  
  
  
Hey! Sam!  
  
He peered over the heads of the students swarming around him. A single dark hand was raised and he made his way toward it, slipping between the bodies streaming from the lecture room.  
  
Angela was leaning against the wall beside a fountain, books clasped in her arms. Fancy meeting you here, she said as he stuffed his books into his back pack.  
  
You were just in the neighbourhood? he asked.  
  
She shrugged. Not really. The med buildings are on the other side of the campus.  
  
You wanted to come and look at the freak?  
  
She sighed and shook her head. Sam, we don't care. I wanted to wish you a merry Christmas, because we only just realized that we don't even know what your phone number is. And think about what you just said. You're proving Kyle's point for him.  
  
Kyle is being a horse's rear end.  
  
You're both being a horse's rear end.  
  
He shrugged. Ah'm willing to talk to him, but Ah don't think he wants to talk to me.  
  
Even if he did, he wouldn't have a chance because this is the first time one of us has seen you in more than two weeks, since you flew off of his balcony.  
  
Sam rubbed the back of his neck That may have been rubbing it in his face a tad.  
  
Just a tad. It's not every day that someone flies off his balcony.  
  
Sam grimaced. How's Eddie doing? he asked instead.  
  
He's coming along remarkably well. We took him in to the hospital and gave them some song and dance about a bar fight. They splinted his hand and kept him over night for observation. You've got free drinks at The Cuppa for as long as he works there, you know.  
  
He had suspected as much. Part of the reason he hadn't gone back there. Accepting free drinks would have made him feel even worse.  
  
What happened to Grace? Angela asked him. The students in the hall had thinned out quickly. Last day of classes before Christmas break and everyone was off home.  
  
Ah would have thought you'd have heard the story. Everyone else has, he said, letting his eyes roam down the empty corridor. It still hurt. It hurt, and that surprised him. He kept thinking he had it closed off, but the closing didn't work because things were still open, the possibilities telling him something he couldn't understand.  
  
I've heard the story. What I want to know is what really happened.  
  
He snapped his eyes back to her. She was just looking at him, and her gaze reminded him of someone else's. He blinked, trying to place it. Then he remembered Angela bursting into Kyle's apartment, Sascha and Kyle following behind in confusion. She hadn't been surprised to see Eddie lying there on the couch. You're a telepath, he said. It reminded him painfully of another conversation that had started with that particular phrase.  
  
She shrugged. Gamma class, at best. I don't even know if I qualify. My Grand'ma was a bruja. That's all. I just... I just have something from her. Sometimes I know when my friends are in trouble, but not always. Once and a while I get a flash of something, something about a person or a hunch, but they're so clouded by my perceptions that they're usually useless.  
  
  
  
She paused, looking at him deeply. Her eyes seemed to look right through him but his mental shields were untouched. There was something about Grace that wasn't right. She wasn't... She wasn't quite *real*, if you know what I mean.  
  
He thought of Grace's eyes, how sometimes it had seemed to him that there was a part of her that wasn't quite there. was all he said.  
  
It wasn't anything menacing, not then. She was just slightly off. She...  
  
She'd cut herself off from who she used to be, Sam said. She told me that she'd needed to be someone else so badly that she had, she'd become someone different.  
  
Angela's eyes rested coolly on him. She didn't ask him why Grace had remembered, or if the timing of her doing so and her disappearing were related. He supposed she could read it on her face. Ah should be going, he said.  
  
Merry Christmas, Sam, she said, kissing him on the cheek. Her words were light but her eyes were troubled. If you feel like it, stop by Kyle's on New Year's. We're having a bit of a party.  
  
Ah'll try, he said, but they both knew that he wouldn't, not that hard. Happy Holidays, Angela.  
  
He turned and headed towards the door.  
  
She called from behind him.  
  
He turned back.   
  
Be careful, okay? I've had a bad feeling lately. Nothing specific or anything. It's been building for awhile, and I've never had anything stay with me for this long. Just... Look out for yourself.   
  
Her eyes were troubled and he tried to smile. Ah will. Ah promise, he said. Ah've got lots of practice.  
  
Try to drop by some time, okay?  
  
He nodded and smiled again, but it wasn't anything he could promise. Look after yourself, Angela. And look after the horse's rear, too. Eddie and Sascha can look after themselves.  
  
I will, she said and tried to smile.  
  
He waved at her and turned back to the hall. She may have whispered something, but it was lost as his steps echoed hollowly down the empty corridor.  
  
The tile was white even when they were gone, the light fracturing it into a thousand colours, and it kept the memory of Angela's words. She'd left them behind because she didn't understand them, left them for the tiles and the light and the colours from white.  
  
I think this might be the last chance for all of us.  
  
*  
  
Computer, end simulation.  
  
Bobby swung around as the Danger Room faded back in around him. Scott was standing in the doorway, arms crossed. He didn't look pleased.  
  
I was kind of in the middle of something, Bobby said.  
  
Scott frowned. You don't have authorisation to be running that level of program by yourself. You're not even supposed to be in here.  
  
Aww. C'mon. I was just letting off a bit of steam.  
  
Bobby, you know the rules. When the safeties are off, you have a spotter. You could have been hurt.  
  
But I *wasn't.* I can look after myself.  
  
Just because you were lucky this time...  
  
If it was Logan in here, or Cable, would you be standing right there, telling them this?  
  
That's different.  
  
The thing is, Scott, you don't think that I can handle it, Bobby said, reaching out with the unfairness of it, his anger.  
  
Logan has a healing factor. Both he and Cable are much more experienced fighters. Scott didn't seem to notice the change in Bobby's voice. It didn't register on him.  
  
[But how are you supposed to get the experience if he won't let you try and improve in your spare time?] Emma asked.  
  
But how am I supposed to get the experience if you don't let me train?  
  
Scott's face was drawn. He didn't see Emma, only it wasn't Emma, it was the ghost in the hall, and the white that held her together was breaking and cracking, showing everything underneath and the wall behind her. She trailed her hand down Scott's arm and he shivered.  
  
We can work something out, Bobby. You just can't take the risk of being here by yourself.  
  
You do it all the time, Bobby spat. Emma passed between them, kissed him with phantom lips. She circled them, wrapped her arms around Bobby from behind. All he could feel was a slight coldness. You do it all the time, Scott. You do it when Jean kicks you out of the boat house. You come here and you take off the safeties and you beat the shit out of holograms. He didn't know what he was saying, but the second it left his lips he knew it was right. He knew it by Emma's laugh and the way Scott's face tightened.  
  
I've been meaning to talk to you, Bobby, and now seems as good a time as any. Scott's body was tense but his words were even and Bobby wanted to laugh. Fearless leader, stretched to breaking. Not so perfect after all. Something inside of him screamed that this wasn't right, that this wasn't him, but it was buried beneath the ghost of lips on his neck. You have issues with the way you're being treated, fine. But this isn't the way to do it.  
  
Well, the other way wasn't working either, Bobby said.  
  
[Make him see,] Emma whispered into his ear. Her words were a chill breeze against his skin.  
  
Bobby, I have never thought of you as anything less. Never. But the way you've been acting lately is starting to change my mind. You've been immature and out of control.  
  
[He's jealous. He can see now what you are, what you could become.]  
  
The something that had been telling him that this wasn't like him was back again and it had a desperate quality to it. She's just telling you what you want to hear. THINK!  
  
THINK!  
  
We joined at the same time, didn't we, Scott?  
  
  
  
Emma's hair fell around him, shimmering. It was a cocoon, a cloud, a shield. I'm as capable as you are, Scott. We've been doing this for the same amount of time and you think better of yourself than you do of me.  
  
That is not true, Bobby.  
  
But it *is.*  
  
[There you go.] Reassurance flooding his mind. [Show him everything you are.]  
  
Fearless leader. You think you're better than I am. You don't think of me as an equal or you wouldn't be down here chewing me out for something you do almost every night.  
  
Scott snapped. Bobby, would you just listen to me for one goddamned second? Bobby wanted to laugh. He'd make him break that layer, that thin veneer that held him separate, held him higher. I just don't want you to get hurt.  
  
For doing something you do. For doing something you do so many damn nights of the week. You have your distance, so you can talk down to me, even though I've been around for as long as you have. You think you can out fight me.  
  
Silence. There are some things...  
  
[He's trying to talk you down. Talk you down so he doesn't have to see any more. See what you are, what you could be, because you make him less.]  
  
You do. It was a flat statement, despite all the anger running through his veins. His blood was singing with it. He was on fire and no one would be able to put him out.  
  
Silence again. Thin smile. [Smile from knowing he's better. Don't you want to knock that smile off of his face? He thinks he's better. You know. You know otherwise. If he knows, then everyone else will know, too, because he's the leader. He knows you're less so they all know that.]  
  
Red Planet program, Bobby snapped.  
  
The world dissolved around them. Steel grid into red stone, antiseptic air into flying dust. Scott's voice, commanding. Bobby, I am not going to fight you.  
  
[Doesn't want you to get hurt. He think's it's a given he'll hurt you. Show him. Show him what he doesn't want to see.]  
  
Bobby launched himself at Scott. Didn't ice up. Just coiled his legs and leapt. Scott wasn't expecting it and Bobby's weight bore him to the ground. His hand took him across the jaw, pain exploding up his arm. It was a good pain, honest. It anchored him here. Scott grabbed his leg and rolled. They hit a wall of rock and sprang apart, coming up. There was blood trickling from Scott's mouth and he wiped it away in wonder, staring at his fingers.  
  
[He's starting to see.]  
  
C'mon, Scott. Scotty-boy. You know you want to.  
  
Stared at the blood on his fingers. Emma traced a finger down the line bright on his face, leaving a trail of anger behind on the places she'd touched.  
  
Come on, fearless leader. Show the boy what you're made of.  
  
Scott came at him then, face pale and thin, hands clenched. He hit him low, knocking them both to the ground. He was on top this time. He was heavier and he kept Bobby pinned to the ground. He hit him once, then again, and again, and again. Bobby's head felt like it was hit by a train each time. Help, he wanted to say, but couldn't. Help.  
  
Emma was there again, eyes fractured beyond where he could see. [A gift,] she said, wrapping her hands across Scott's visor. She pulled them through, wiped down, and he stopped. Stopped hitting Bobby, lost awareness. [A short reprieve.] Emma leaned down, traced a finger still slick with Scott's blood across Bobby's lips and kissed him hard. [Just so this is fair.]   
  
Her lips were on his and there was blood moving between them. He could feel the ice in his veins flowing out of him, away. His blood and Scott's cancelling out. Can't pull ice against Scott, couldn't get blasted by his ruby eyes, not until this fight was won. It was a hard, dark kiss, feeding off the blood and feeding into it, until the darkness was moving in him again and his anger was back, it was all he could feel, never mind the injuries his body was taking.   
  
He growled and rolled, Scott flying from on top of them, skidding in the red dirt. He was on his feet in an instant, the paralysis gone. He'd left half the skin of his face and his glasses on the ground but he didn't seem to notice.  
  
Never hit a man with glasses, Bobby thought, only Scott had lost his glass so Bobby hit him as hard as he could. Scott moved with the blow, head down, catching Bobby at the side and throwing him back against the stone wall. His head snapped back and his vision swam. He slid down the wall out of instinct. Scott's fist crashed into the wall where his head had been only seconds before. He realised what had happened when his hand hit stone and he kicked as hard as he could, catching Bobby in the ribs.  
  
The air exploded from Bobby's body in one gasping breath. He couldn't breath, he couldn't, but he had to keep moving. He grabbed Scott's foot when it came at him again and he pushed the other man backwards. Scott careened backwards, losing his footing on the uneven ground. Bobby was on him them, pinning him to the ground, pummelling. He hit him, hit him, drew back to hit him again but Scott's arm came around from beside his body and he had only a second to see that in his hand was clasped a rock, because as Bobby's fist hit the side of Scott's head with all the anger in him everything exploded around him.   
  
And he was sinking into a black that was really white only even the white wasn't white.  
  
*  
  
Sam wandered the streets. The Christmas lights strung along the avenue did little to cheer him up. He didn't want to go back to Westchester but he no longer had somewhere else to be.  
  
Somewhere else to be.  
  
His feet moved as his thoughts wandered and it was only then that he looked around to see that the buildings were familiar. It took him awhile to place them, because everything every where he looked was covered in a curious haze. Everything was dark and shadows seemed solid. Snow beneath his feet made no noise and the wind plucking at his coat was silent. A car passed by on the street, flinging spray into the air as he turned to look, but even the engine pulling it steadily along was mute.  
  
He turned back to the street and it was as if his every movement was caught in amber. The lights in Kyle's building were dim and yellow. Their warmth didn't reach his skin. The elevator door slid open even as he cross the lobby and he stepped inside. He was the only one inside but the reflective surface was playing tricks with his mind because the ghost in the hall stood beside him and he didn't recognize his own face.  
  
It stopped at the correct floor and he stepped out into the hall. It seemed to span to infinity on either side of him. The dark carpet gave beneath his feet and the white walls seemed cloaked in grey. The door to Kyle's apartment seemed to glow. He went to turn the knob but the door swung open at his touch. Light was strange in here as well, but there was something seductive about it, threatening and seducing. He had an instant and an eternity to notice Kyle as he stepped over his still body, spot Sascha lying half in, half out of the kitchenette. Her black hair hung over half of her golden skin, giving the look of something painted with sun and shadows.  
  
White on the couch, only the white wasn't true any more. Wasn't true in her clothes or her hair or the whites of her eyes. It was shattered and changed because white was every colour in equal proportions and as soon as one got out of control, gained more influence it wasn't white anymore and it wasn't camouflage.  
  
she said. I've been waiting for you.  
  
She rose from the couch in a controlled, graceful movement, floating towards him. She ran a hand up his shoulder to play with the hair at the back of his neck and he couldn't move. He didn't want to move, only something inside of him was screaming. She wasn't Emma any more, not with the coolness of her skin and her fractured eyes as she leaned in to slide a kiss across his mouth. She was the ghost in the hall and she was the Queen. She wasn't his teammate and she wasn't his sister's teacher, she was the White Queen again, except she was only the Queen because the white was shattering.  
  
she said, whispering against his skin. Your thoughts are loud. I have too many thoughts already.  
  
Everything, every movement was still molasses, still caught in amber and her touch was cool and expert. He found himself responding even though that part of him was still screaming. As she kissed him all he could think of was Grace and he couldn't move. Sometime when he wasn't paying attention they'd fallen to the floor and she was now pressed against him. she said again as she drew back from his face and moved her attentions lower.  
  
Her face blurred and multiplied as she moved, catching in the amber and one of them stayed, looked up at him. Blue eyes, he saw. Sad blue eyes. [She needs you to submit] it said. Its voice was low and weak, as if from lack of use. [She needs you to want this. She]   
  
/I had a little bird and her name was Enza/   
  
[won't rip up your mind and control your body. This is still you.] The face turned, shook and shattered, leaving him alone with the Queen and the singing voice.  
  
Lips on his stomach and nails resting against his back.  
  
//IhadalittlebirdandhernamewasEnzaIopenedthewindowandInflewenza//  
  
Lips and tongue knew what they were doing. Nails promised. He couldn't... The world was amber and he was caught.   
  
He thought of nursery rhymes. Little Miss Muffett, she sat on her tuffett... Nothing echoed back.   
  
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.  
  
/Maryhadalittlelamblamblamblamblamblamb/  
  
Something there. Nothing much. Sam tried with the last of his will to think of another, something, something to bring the voice back because he was loosing this battle fast and her lips were warm, so warm, like jungle air. Jungle air. Simulation in the jungle. He'd heard the voice then. He'd heard it singing a nursery rhyme, singing a lullaby. Rock-a- Rock-a- Rock-a  
  
Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top.  
  
//Rockabyebabyinthetreetop//  
  
The Queen stopped, shook her head.  
  
//Whenthebowbreaksthecradlewilldrop//  
  
Shut up, she whispered, hands to head. Shut up. Shut up. Shutupupupup. Her hair flew wildly as she shook her head back and forth, back and forth.  
  
//ANDDOWNWILLFALLBABYCRADLEANDALL//  
  
SHUT UP!  
  
Sam felt the hold on his body loosen somewhat and he tried to call out. He tried to yell for help but all that came out was a muffled croak as his mind screamed. Jean would hear. Jean would know something was wrong.   
  
Nuh huh, the Queen said, shaking her head. You can't get away. Jean's busy. She giggled and the sound raised the hair all over his body. Busy busy busy. I wonder if she likes the present I left for her to deal with.  
  
Sam tried to scramble backwards, scramble upright, but the Queen placed a hand on his chest. It was barely any pressure at all but it paralysed him. I can't have you, she whispered in his ear. But there are lots of other ways to get even with the bitch. You won't enjoy them as much, though. I could make you, she said as the thought struck her. I could make you enjoy them. Would you like that, Sam, would you? She caught his chin with iron fingers and turned his eyes to hers. Would you? He was falling in her eyes as they fractured and spun. Worlds were in them, seducing, promising, and was about to say yes, agree to anything with pleasure when the door crashed open with a bang.  
  
It sounded like a shot and broke him out of her eyes, shattered the amber that held him still. She hissed, her attention no longer on him. Grace was standing in the door, her eyes burning and whirling and her skin glowing white and he wanted to scream at her, tell her to go, to run, to get out of here but the sudden snap back to normal had left him depleted and barely able to remember how to breath. The Queen's hand was still on his chest and it was burning hot now, not cool and impersonal.   
  
Grace moved into the room, the door clicking shut behind her. Run, he tried to scream. Oh, God, *Grace*. Kyle and Sascha and now Grace. Get out of here, he managed to say. This isn't her fight, he tried to add, but the Queen's attention was no longer on him and Grace was moving predatorily around the room. There was something in their eyes, something in their faces and bearing that was screaming at him and he felt his mind fall numb as he recognized it, recognized what about Grace had always been so familiar.  
  
The Queen smiled, and it was a beautiful, mad smile that shattered the resemblance between them. she said. How nice of you to join us.  
  
  



	12. Chapter 12

*  
**The Karma Downs**  
**12/13**  
*  


  
  
It was amazing how much the world could change and still stay exactly the same. It was something the same with identical twins. Once you learned to tell them apart, there was no way to confuse them, though they bore the same features.   
  
Like Kyle and Eddie. They should have looked a great deal more alike than they did, but they wore their features differently.  
  
Like Grace and Emma. Emma and the Queen.  
  
Sam's mind stuttered. Grace Emma. Emma Grace. Gracemma. He could feel the lines between them now, as the living room dipped and faded. It was Kyle's living room and it was the ice plane and it was the astral plane, lines humming violet around him. Layers upon layers. The thin, tentative chords stretched between Gracemma and him, the Queen, thinner feelers leading off to the team. A twisted spider web, and they were all caught. The Queen sang insanity along each strand she touched.  
  
Gracemma and the Queen, circling each other. He was trapped in the middle and he couldn't move, their thoughts testing each other's above his head as the web bound him still. The Queen and Gracemma  
  
[Just Grace for now. Deal with that. Deal with Gracemma latter. Later. Survive now.]  
  
so much the same, but so different. There was insanity in the Queen's eyes and smile, cruelty in the flick of her fingers and the set of her face. A boneless, seductive languidity in her movements.  
  
Grace, Grace was cold at times. And she was distant and sometimes vindictive, but the anger burning in her eyes was honest, and she wasn't cruel. She was fiercely protective of the few people who managed to worm their way inside her defences, and so much of her distance was due to her distrust of herself.  
  
Gracemma. Gracemma. Gracemma. It circled in his head. He needed it not to be true, even as he knew it was. He wanted to reach out to her but he couldn't move, because the ice in the living room floor was sapping his will. he managed to croak.  
  
Her eyes on him were bright and he could see them pulling back from him. Getting ready for when he lashed out, he thought. She was carefully distancing herself from him so that this wouldn't hurt, and some part of him realized that she'd been trying to do it all along. That lack of something real in her eyes had been her attempt to protect herself from starting to care, because she *had*, he saw. She had started to care and that had scared her, and that cut him to the core.  
  
corrected the Queen. She's Emmmma.  
  
And her eyes were gone again, distant and he could only read her conviction, her desperation in the swing of her hair and the coiled violence of her movement. he said again. Grace. Gracemma.  
  
What's my phone number, Sam? she asked, taking his call of Grace as a lack of belief instead of a plea, a need to know how this would all work out. What's my number?  
  
Only he couldn't remember. He knew it, but he couldn't remember. He'd called her plenty of times.  
  
You've called me. But what's my phone number? Her voice was bitter and foreboding, and some part of him realized that she was shoving it home like a slap in the face, trying to get him to disassociate. Where do I live, Sam? What's my last name?  
  
He knew these things, he knew them, only he didn't, because he never had.  
  
What colour are my eyes? she asked him, and there was something desperate in her voice because she was really asking him that one, she needed to know, only he didn't know either. They were bright eyes. Bright and shining. They were blue-grey grey-green green-and-brown hazel and violet and they were nothing at all. What colour are my eyes?  
  
He could only shake his head, because he didn't know, had never known.  
  
What colour are my eyes? she asked once more, voice low and broken and desperate, and then the screaming started. It swung between them, scampered along the lines of the web that bound him and her and the Queen and Bobby and Jean and Scott and Kyle and all the others. It was angry and searching and it followed easily on the trails left by the anger that had flowed between them for what Sam now saw was some time now.  
  
It hit Grace like a fist and she rocked back on her heels. Her hair flew and stood out bright against the mixed reality they found themselves in. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, rocking slightly as she stood against the barrage of screaming. It was loud and it was voiceless and Sam thought it would shake his very bones apart.  
  
Grace shook her bowed head, shook it hard and her head snapped up and her eyes blazed. Something shot between her and the Queen and the screaming cut off with a final, soul-rending wail.  
  
The Queen smiled that beautiful, mad smile again and laughed, a sound that was worse in its delicacy than the screaming had been. You think you can beat me. You think that you stand a chance.  
  
The world altered and shifted again, losing some of its cohesion, losing the carpet beneath their feet and the walls around them until it was the astral plane lain through the ice and white was black and black was white and the ice and the lines humming beneath their feet threatened of the abyss below.  
  
[Poor Emma,] the Queen said, launching a psychic blow. [Poor, poor Emma. You need me. You've always needed me.]  
  
[I only thought I did.] Grace deflected the blow to the distance.  
  
Blue bolts flew, jagged like lightning. [You created me. You created me to deal with the things that you couldn't, be the things you couldn't be. I'm the only reason you're alive now. You think you can survive without me?]  
  
A swirling field absorbed the bolts, the colours equalising and becoming white as the blue was absorbed. [I'm learning to. I'm learning to be who I am, and who I need to be.]  
  
[There's not enough time between life and death for that. Me, you, all the others - We're the same. We're one. Without each other the pattern breaks down. White isn't white.]  
  
[I'm not like you. I'm never like you, because if I could have been, then I wouldn't have needed you. And you don't want me, except dead.]  
  
Rage whirled between them again and Sam was caught in the middle. Images and thoughts dashed against each other like waves upon the shore, broken by the rocks and pieced back together by the whole.   
  
  
  
::Eight years old. Know father. *Know* him. Have to be something he could approve of. Have to be something that can survive the world out there because the world is out to get you. Father says so, and the minds around her confirm it. No one cares. You can't care. She has to be able to care, but she can't let herself. Can't be that person.  
  
Can't be.  
  
Be.  
  
Become. Two.  
  
Two now.::  
  
  
  
::Know the insanity around them. Knew the press of minds of the asylum. She's not crazy, not yet. Neither of them are. The balance keeps them sane. She takes over when Emma can't. Can't do it, can't see, can't deal. But they know the insanity around them. It sinks to them, cradles them. Can't be a buffer. Can't deal.  
  
Need to be someone else. Someone who can handle the voices.  
  
Be. Become. Need to live through this.  
  
Three now::   
  
  
  
::White. White everywhere. Keep your breath low and even, despite the hitch in your throat. Pressed back in the corner, under the bed. No shadows even there. The white chases them away. White floors, cold beneath small fingers. White walls, glowing. White bed, white hair, white skin, white robe. Robe is thin. Too thin.   
  
Keep your breathing quite. Heart beat still. Push it low because he'll hear you, because he's coming, he's always coming. He always comes.  
  
Live through this. Just live through this. The second can, because she's hard, but she hates it. Hates it hates it hates it.   
  
She's starting to take the white as her own, so it doesn't hurt her.  
  
The sound of a key in the lock. Fight back a whimper. You can't you can't you can't deal. The door screams open, rust on the hinges announcing his presence even more than knowledge, or the sound of his breath and his heavy, ugly steps. Face buried into white nightgown. If you can't see him he can't see you. It's all that's left because there's no place to hide, curled in the corner under the bed.   
  
His breathing is broken and angry. Can almost feel him tearing the room apart with his eyes. Come out. Come out, little one. It'll only be worse... the heavy ugly steps start again.   
  
Face pressed tighter to the thin, thin white robe. Live through this. Steps come closer. Bitch, he mutters, bitch.  
  
::  
  
  
  
::White now. White again. White is camouflage. If you control white it means that it can't hurt you. If you control things then they can't hurt you. You have to have something to survive.  
  
White walls are dull. The floor shines, but white is black and black is white. She sits in the corner with her back to the wall. She doesn't sleep in the bed. Knees drawn to her chest, she doesn't even know who she is anymore. Where she ends and the others begin, and she doesn't think she likes them, but it doesn't matter.   
  
All that matters is to live through this.  
  
Key in the door. She knows he was coming because he always comes. He's always coming.   
  
No more. Live through this isn't enough. This has to end. Eight years nine years ten, they all blur. She wasn't crazy before. She doesn't know anymore. She may be. Some of the others are, or are dancing that line.  
  
Door swings open silently because he'd oiled the hinges. Shuffle and glide across the tiled floor, and that ugly ugly grin splits his face. Big meaty hands reaching for her and this isn't enough. This isn't this isn't this won't happen anymore.   
  
Need to be. Be something more.  
  
Shudder rips through her, a wave in her mind that spins the world upside down and sideways and back.  
  
//You touch me and I'll kill you,// she thinks, and he stops. Stops dead and stares because the voice was in his head and he knows that it's true. //You touch me and I'll fucking kill you.// She thinks at him and he stops and his body won't obey his commands any more.   
  
She feels a grin split her face. It's ugly and insane and she can feel the horror that rises up in him She revels in it because she needs to make him hurt, make someone hurt for all of the Live Through This. Touch me and I'll kill you, she'd said.  
  
She might kill him anyway.  
  
She might just make him wish she'd killed him. ::  
  
  
And the flow of thoughts was gone. They were gone with the moment frozen in time as it shattered and the memories spit Sam out to the ice and the astral plane like waves throwing someone out of the sky. He wanted to throw up, or cry for her, cry for all of them. //Caring is a weakness// a small voice tells him and he thinks it may be one of the smaller personalities, the ones whose lives are hanging in the balance but cannot change anything. //Caring is a weakness because it makes you vulnerable. But with the vulnerability comes healing. She was the first. She's still the first, and she needs something else, something more. Her entire life has been Live Through This. Don't let her go away. Show her something more. Please. Promise.//  
  
//I promise,// he thought.  
  
The Queen and Grace, they were still and shaken because somehow he knew that it hadn't been the doing of either of them. Maybe he'd been wrong in thinking that the others had no voice in this.  
  
The Queen shook her head, covering the moment of weakness quickly. [You needed me. You still need me. You think you're the only one who lived through this? This is how it has to be.]  
  
Grace shook her head then, shook it because she let herself care and it made her weak and she was still recovering from the shock of the memories. [You're insane,] she whispered. [You have to know that.]  
  
The Queen shrugged, and elegant, boneless roll of her shoulders. [We're all a bit crazy, little girl. Who can say who's more or less? Who can say who's right? You think you're the only one who had to Live Through This? You think anyone cares what you think? They had all the chances. They had every opportunity. Sean, Monet, any of your students... They should have known. They should have seen. Not even Xavier did. They did nothing. You think that if you deserved help, you wouldn't have got it?]  
  
[No,] Sam struggled to say. [NO.] They looked at him then, as if they'd forgotten his presence and he struggled against the weakness and nausea that still held them. [Grace....] [Emma, just because aren't offered help doesn't mean you don't need it. It doesn't mean you don't deserve it.]  
  
She smiled at him then, and though it was weak it was true, and in the instant her attention was diverted, the Queen launched an attack. Not at her. No, not at her because she would have been able to counter it.  
  
[SAM!] Grace cried as he crumpled. This half world, this construct of ice and astral plane wobbled around him and he couldn't breathe. The ice sucked the strength from his bones and the grid lashed at him like fire. His mind was being torn to pieces and all he could do was try to breath because the pain was everywhere and everything and it was all he could feel until he thought that he was numb with it, then it worsened.  
  
There was a thud, and the ice sapping the strength from his veins disappeared and it was carpet pressed against his face, carpet rough beneath his fingers as Grace tackled the Queen to the ground. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Kyle and Sascha were still lying unconscious on the floor. The pain was gone with the ice and the sudden absence left him light-headed.   
  
The web was around them again, that tangled spider's web that bound them all up and Grace and the Queen were back on their feet, mental blows flickering back and forth between them faster and faster and all Sam could do was scramble backwards out of the way, because that wasn't the place for a non-telepath to be. Grace's eyes were burning bright and he thought that they were gold. She was furious, he saw. Her hesitation was gone and all that she knew was the drive to win.   
  
He could feel some of the blows between them, could feel the fight, and Grace was weakening. For the past few months she'd been essentially unconscious, her mind tied up with keeping her unaware. The Queen was glowing with the light of insanity and she didn't care where her power came from, yanking it from along the web and everyone who it joined.  
  
Grace stumbled, a blow knocking her backwards, and this time she was slow to rise. The Queen towered over her, eyes shattered and spinning colours and she drew back for the final blow.  
  
//RingaRinga//  
  
She paused and it was enough for Grace to throw herself at the Queen and knock her back. It wasn't enough, though, because the Queen was still stronger, still so much stronger and Grace was losing. Sam rose unsteadily to his feet. He didn't know what he could do but he needed to do something.   
  
Amber caught at him, the same amber that had trapped him as he was drawn towards the apartment and as Grace fell again (For the last time, something whispered to him) there was a great pounding. The amber stretched and shifted, grew larger, but that stretched it thin and he could almost move. No!' he tried to call. Tried to throw himself towards them, give Grace some time, if only the few seconds that it would take the Queen to dispose of him.  
  
//Help me!// He cried with his mind, reaching for something, anything, because he knew that they couldn't let the Queen go free.  
  
Something stirred and responded sleepily to him. A weak mind, a partial mind brushed at his. /thiswan'ttheplan,/ it said sadly. /thiswasn'ttheplanandwedon'tknowhowtostopit./  
  
Help us, he said.   
  
The Queen snapped her head around and in that second Grace drew back her mind for one final volley. Sam could feel it, feel the intent and he knew that the Queen could too.  
  
[Silly girl,] she said, her mind rushing to meet Grace's. They locked and struggled, flowing in and out of each other until once again neither knew where they started and the others began. Grace was weakening fast and she grasped out, reached for something.  
  
//RingaRingaRinga Ring-around the rosies//  
  
Something slipped in the Queen and weakened. Something chipped from behind as a small voice followed the singing one in a small attack. All he could see was eyes. Eyes. The Queen's eyes, swollen and broken and fractured, dancing with every colour like water on an oil slick.   
  
//Pocket full of posies//  
  
Grace's eyes, gold now. Gold like her hair, because she was the first, and that's the only way she could hold onto the memory. What colour are my eyes?' she'd asked. he whispered, and he knew she heard him. Your eyes are gold.   
  
//Husha, Husha//   
  
Her concentration flickered and divided. The Queen took full advantage of that, plucking away at the edges of Grace's mind, until Grace slammed her mind back at her, stronger this time, and the voices from behind chipped away a bit more at the Queen. The banging came again.  
  
//We ALL//  
  
Grace was Emma and Emma was Grace and they had always been the same, and she drew back her mind for one final blow because it was all the strength she had left. Sam couldn't help. Couldn't do anything but watch as the amber trapped him, tried to strangle him like a fly.  
  
//FALL//  
  
Impact. Gracemma and the Queen, minds locked one last time and the Queen wavered. Sunk somewhat inside herself.  
  
///DOWN///  
  
Shattered. Shattered like the white, the strings holding the personalities and the Queen's mind together snapped and broke. Explosion of thoughts and minds as they all streamed out around her and the Queen stood there, eyes wide. Eyes that were every colour that were the white that was black widened as it all shattered and exploded from her. A hint of denial in those eyes, a refusal to believe. White that was black became white. A pinprick at first, a dot of white that spread and grew, reaching and searching through the black like ice forming, only it was diamond, diamond that spread over the Queen's eyes as she slowly toppled down into the abyss. The spread of the white sped up, spread until it covered the entirety of her eyes and Sam realized that the amber had broken and he was standing above her body, her wide open eyes glazed with diamond.  
  
Grace (Emma, that voice reminded him) crouched at her side as the hammering came again and he realized that it was the door even as it burst open, Angela and Eddie spilling in. Grace shook her head and gently closed the Queen's eyelids.   
  
She stood and looked at Sam, waiting for him to say something. Her eyes, glowing gold, slowly faded until they were green, blue swimming up from beneath because of course her eyes were blue, blue like Emma's, because she was Emma, she was always Emma. She stood as if waiting for a blow, and as the last of the glow left her eyes green, she wavered on her feet and her knees buckled. He caught her as she fell, pulling her into his arms. she asked weakly, eyes fluttering.   
  
he said, and kissed her forehead as the last traces of consciousness slipped from her body.  
  
He turned to see Angela slowly making her way across the apartment. Her eyes were cool. I had a bad feeling, she said plainly. Eddie was crouched at his brother's side, taking his pulse. Sam looked at Kyle and Sascha, lying ever so still on the floor.   
  
They'll be all right, Angela reassured him.   
  
He didn't ask how she knew. Probably disabled so the Queen could have played with them later. Angela didn't bother kneeling by the Queen's side to check on her.  
  
We need to call the police, Eddie said, rising from Sascha's side. They're okay, but they need a... He stopped as he took a good look at the body on the floor, then at Grace, cradled in Sam's arms. Let me guess. This is another of those no cops' things.  
  
Sam nodded tiredly. Ah'm so sorry about this.  
  
Angela smiled weakly. It's not your fault.  
  
If they hadn't known him, it would never have happened. But he hadn't split Emma and the Queen, and if he had the choice, even knowing how it would all end, he wouldn't give up the past few months, give up his friends and Grace. No matter how it would all shake down.   
  
Ah have some friends, he started, then stopped. There's... Ah know where we have tah go. They can all get better treatment for this sort of thing than they would in a hospital.  
  
But we're sworn to secrecy? Eddie asked, his face impassive.  
  
No. You're mah friends, too. Ah trust you.  



	13. Chapter 13

*  
**The Karma Downs**  
**13/13  
***  


  
  
  
Beep. Beep. Beep.  
  
The steady hum of the monitor was reassuring. The beeps came with the rise and fall of Grace's chest. Sam leaned his elbow to the table beside his chair and waited. The sheets that covered her pale form were white, white as the tiled floor and the shining walls.  
  
He thought she'd hate that. Waking up pinned to the bed by white, trapped, alone. So he sat, and he waited. There was a rustle of fabric beside him as Jean sunk into the chair on the other side of the table. she said, her voice soft and her eyes tired. You should get some rest.  
  
Ah'm fine, Jean, he said, shifting to face her. You don't look so hot yourself, if yah don't mind mah saying.  
  
I couldn't sleep if I wanted to.  
  
It's all a bit much, isn't it?  
  
She shook her head. It's all surreal. I found them, you know. Scott and Bobby, in the Danger Room. They'd managed to knock each other unconscious.  
  
They going to be all right?  
  
Scott will. He's awake already, though he's groggy. Bobby... It's not just damage from the fight. His mind's so snarled up that it's going to take me awhile to sort it out. When... She paused, searching for the right name. When Emma died... Jean faltered again and it was all Sam could do to tell her that Emma wasn't dead, Emma was lying on the bed before her. Her work snapped, Jean continued. I could have sorted it out if she hadn't... All of us have some damage, but Bobby... He was far gone already. She paused then, and her hands formed fists on the arms of her chair before she smoothed them out again. I'm angry, but I'm not.  
  
Ah understand, he said simply. Ah understand completely.  
  
I mean, Emma did these things, but if we'd seen, if we'd helped...  
  
We can't know, Sam said. It could have been the same, and it could have been completely different.  
  
She shook her head and looked over at Grace. It's eerie, she said. How much the same and how much different they look.  
  
How much the same and how different they are, Sam said. Hank says that on the genetic level, they're - they were - identical.  
  
And how... And how is she...  
  
Sam asked.  
  
Jean qualified. Her own physical body.  
  
Ah think... Ah talked tah Hank, and Ah think that at first, she was only half real, or not even as real as her powers could make her. She'd needed to be someone else, so she was separate, but it wasn't until she actually became her own, her self, the body became just as real. And in the end, there wasn't really much choice. Become really real, physically, or die with the Queen.  
  
Jean nodded, her eyes tired as she fiddled absently with the worn cuff of her sleeve. Does he have any idea when she's going to wake up?  
  
No. He thinks that it may be some sort of psychic fatigue. Ah guess killing yourself always takes something out of you, but Ah wouldn't know.  
  
Jean shook her head. I can't. I can't, she said. I can't go in her head. Not right now. You understand?  
  
Sam sighed and sprawled in his chair, his heart aching. Ah know.  
  
Jean started to rest a hand on his arm then stopped. Your friends are going to be all right.  
  
Ah know. Hank told me straight off, after the two of you had examined them. But you knew that all ready.  
  
The medlab certainly had been earning its keep that evening.  
  
Your one friend, Jean started. The black girl. She's-  
  
A gamma class telepath. Ah know.  
  
Gamma class empath, actually. She's got a smattering of precog.  
  
  
  
Jean asked.  
  
Her name is Angela.  
  
She smiled. Thank you. I have... other things on my mind right now. The four of them are taking this rather well, don't you think?  
  
Sam felt a grin lift at his face. They're good like that, he said, eyes somewhere else. We meet a lot of prejudice, so we get to thinking that everyone who's not a part of the spandex squad is like that. That's as bad as thinking that all mutants are evil.  
  
Jean nodded and lapsed into silence. You should go see them, Sam. There's a limit to how much even the most open of minds can take in in an evening, and I think that Logan's been hanging around, keeping an eye on them for you.  
  
Sam levered himself out of his chair, muscles and joints protesting. I better get up there, he said. Eddie often liked his men dark, strong, and mysterious. Logan fit the bill perfectly, and Eddie tended to get flirty when he was anxious or uncomfortable.   
  
By the time he reached the room where the others were, the look on Logan's face and the smirks barely hidden behind Sascha and Kyle's hands told him he was too late.  
  
*  
  
Sam padded down the hall. He couldn't sleep. Kyle, Eddie, Angela, and Sascha were tucked away in empty rooms not their own, sleeping soundly, and he couldn't find solace in his own bed. The verges of sleep brought with them dreams of white and ice, and every time he closed his eyes, he saw the Queen falling into the abyss, drowning in her own eyes.  
  
There was a hand on his arm and he spun, visions of the ghost in the hall dancing before his eyes, but it was only Hank, the lenses of the glasses pushed up on his head glittering in the dim light. Couldn't sleep? he asked.  
  
Sam shook his head, heart starting to slow. Hank nodded him sympathy and guided the younger man down the hall. They just strode companionably for a time.  
  
Yah know anything more? Sam finally asked.   
  
He could have been referring to Bobby, or Scott, or any one of a dozen things, but Hank just shook his head. She's shown no change in condition. Her vitals are good, but she's just not there.  
  
Sam shook his head.  
  
What is it? Hank asked.  
  
Just... Before, she had shut herself away completely from who she was. Ah just hope that she's not...  
  
Hank asked gently. Sam nodded faintly. It's possible, but it's certainly not likely. If that were the case, then there would be some dip in her vitals - after all, she wouldn't need that body any more. Or she'd be awake with no notion of who she was. No, I don't think that that's the likeliest scenario. It could be that she's worn down, or it could just be the snap of being really, truly alone. She's lost the rest of those personalities permanently, and from what you've said she's had them almost since her mutation first manifested. It must take some adjusting to, especially for a telepath.  
  
Sam smiled weakly as they neared the observation room. He didn't voice his other worries, for fear that giving them words would make them real. He wanted - he *needed* to be there when she woke up, so she wouldn't leave. He couldn't let her take off because she was afraid of rejection, or getting hurt, or for his own good. He'd promised.   
  
The observation room was intended for keeping an eye on multiple rooms, or on just one patient without disturbing them. Hank, with his wide, gentle eyes, let Sam follow him in, instead of sending him back to bed. Three of the displays were active that night. Without meaning to Sam felt himself drift over to the one that showed Grace lying still, too still. He reached out and brushed the display with his fingers, strangely disappointed that he only felt crystal beneath his fingers. Hank made encouraging noises at the figures dancing on the screen, but Sam couldn't make heads or tails of them.  
  
The blue man moved on to the other screens, and Sam reluctantly tore himself away. Bobby was lying in one, face bruised but cleansed of blood. Hank was keeping him under until Jean or someone could do something about the mess in his mind, the splintered and broken places. Scott was displayed on the last one, head neatly bandaged, Jean curled above the covers on the bed beside him. He was just in for observation.  
  
There was a beeping from behind him, out of place against the normally calm and ordered sounds and Sam spun around. Hank was an instant behind him.   
  
Grace looked up at them from her screen, then averted her eyes and continued to pull the sensors and electrodes from her hair and skin.   
  
Sam was out the door in an instant. His steps echoed down the hall. He was running as fast as he could but Hank was faster, and the other man passed him as they cornered. The hall in front of them was empty save for Logan, who was lounging outside the med area and flipping through a magazine. He put it down at the sound of their steps, instantly slipping into readiness.   
  
Sam ignored him, just keyed the door to Grace's room and waited impatiently for it to open.   
  
No one's come by here, Logan said as the door slid open with agonising slowness. The bed was messed up and scattered with sensors, but the room was empty.  
  
Grace was gone.  
  
*  
  
Time passed. Christmas was an unusually restrained affair that year. Jean searched with Cerebro but couldn't find a trace of her, and she and Bobby started to piece back together the shattered pieces of his psyche. Sam went back to the city, to Kyle's for New Year's, half surprised when he was literally welcomed with open arms. School started again, and finals passed in a fog for Sam.   
  
Life went on, even when your mind held fast to a moment in time.  
  
He missed Grace with an ache that while not all consuming, was never far from hand, waiting around corners to jump on him when he least expected it. He'd tell himself that it didn't matter, because even if she hadn't gone she may not have wanted him now.  
  
Things that were the same were different, and things that were different were the same. There were times when he turned to talk to her, only to find nothing but air beside him.  
  
Life went on, and he lived through it.  
  
Kyle and Sascha, Eddie and Angela, they sensed the change in him more than even Jean did, he thought. Maybe because the idea of him and Grace - Emma - was too much for his teammates to really wrap their minds around. It boggled even him sometimes, but in her absence he knew that he didn't care. Maybe it was better, for him to see that he really did need her, than for her to have stayed and for them to have drifted apart, have the fragile thing between them fray and break.  
  
He missed her. And in the end, that was all that mattered.   
  
There were snowstorms well into the new year. He walked out to his truck with Kyle and Sascha one day in late February, collar of his jacket tucked up tight around his ears. The world was white, and his favourite jacket had been missing for quite awhile. His head was down against the snow, so the first thing that he noticed was that Kyle and Sascha were no longer walking beside him. They were stopped in the flying snow, and she slowly shook flakes from her black hair as he raised his head.  
  
There was a single figure sitting on the hood of his truck, knees tucked up to her chest. White and gold hair, flying, blending in with the storm.  
  
See you later, Sascha said gently, and Kyle clapped him on the back as they faded into the storm.  
  
Sam took a slow step forward, eyes fixed firmly on Grace. She was so pale she seemed a part of the storm and even with his gaze firm he kept losing her in the snow. She had her arms around her legs and her forehead to her knees and she looked up at his approach. He reached out for her hands, only to find that they were bare. Her skin was like ice. He hissed at that, pulled her from the hood of his truck and to the ground. She left a space clear of snow behind her, the red glaring against the white that coated the rest of it. How long had she been out here? he thought.  
  
Not too long, she said, her voice as numb as the wind around them.  
  
He led her to the cab of his truck, slipping around to the driver's side when she slowly climbed inside. She moved like the storm was in her joints. He turned the heater on as high as he could, shivering as it blew cold air as it attempted to warm up.  
  
He got a good look at her then, a really good look. Her eyes were a faded, faded green, snow slowly melting from her hair. The snow had fallen from the window when he'd opened the door but the storm raged outside. She was *thin* somehow, missing that something real again, and her eyes were distant. She lifted her hands to the heating vent, held her long fingers in the cold, blowing air. He caught her hands in his own, gingerly, softly, waiting for her to pull away, lean towards him, do something, anything, but she seemed not to even notice. Her skin was like ice and he blew softly between their cupped hands, trying to warm them.   
  
He looked up at her and her eyes were trying so hard to not be there, but they were, they were tied, and he realized that she was wearing his missing jacket, the one he'd slipped over her shoulders before they'd left for Westchester all those weeks ago. It's no good, you know, she said. I'm still Grace, but I'm still Emma, and you've never been especially fond of Emma.  
  
Ah never got to know her, he said. You never let me.  
  
She shook her head, melted snow flying from her hair and dancing across his skin. I needed them before. What's to say that I won't become them again? I needed them to be able to deal, the Queen was right about that. I was never... I was never enough, Sam. Not just by myself. I was never enough.  
  
Then Ah'll be the rest until you learn it for yourself. And you'll do it. You will.  
  
She shook her head again and her eyes were almost frantic. This can't be. You're holding on out of loyalty, but in the end all that will get you is miserable.  
  
He saw in her eyes and her voice that she was desperate. She was trying to push him away because she couldn't bear to end it herself, and she couldn't leave it unfinished. And she needed it, god, she needed it. She needed something real, something that wasn't just another phase to be lived through. Ah told you once that Ah didn't care what you were before, what you'd done or where you'd been. Yah wouldn't ask me to go back on that now, would you?  
  
She shook her head angrily. You see? It's just respect to the words you've said before. You didn't know then. I didn't know then, and you couldn't have expected to have to hold it to this. You're paying homage to empty words because you're too good and too honourable to do anything else. I can't do that to you. I won't. Her anger was spent by the end of it and her words petered to a stop.   
  
He was glad of her anger, cherished it, because she was trying to disassociate from everything so she could just let go and drift away, and as long as she was mad she was held here. Ah won't lie you, he said. It'll take some getting used to. But Ah meant what Ah said then, and Ah mean it when Ah say it now. Ah know who you are, and as much as you may hate that, it won't go away. You're not going to get off on passing this off to me, because you do care. You could have left me, and Kyle and Sascha to the Queen, but you didn't, not even thought you knew it would probably get you killed. You want to get out of this without getting hurt, but Ah'm telling you now that that's not going to happen, because Ah'm not just going tah let you get away.  
  
Her eyes were angry then, angry and the green started to slip to gold, but she seemed more solid, more real. She wasn't as faded, and she didn't seem to blend in with the storm outside any more.  
  
You're going tah get hurt, because life is messy. There's no way around it. And Ah'll probably hurt you along the way, because that's the other side of caring. Yah can't have one without the other, but Ah can promise you right here, right now, that Ah will never *try* to hurt you. Ah can't tell you how this will end, but Ah can tell you how this will start, he said. It'll start when yah give up the self pity, and start to heal. It'll start when yah really let someone in, when yah let yourself live. Not everything is Live Through This, but you can make it that way if you try hard enough.  
  
He waited for a blow, or a quick retort, but what he got was laughter. She laughed with all the sadness of the past few months, and with all the joy. He kept her hands tight within his, and he thought that they were a bit warmer, a bit more substantial.  
  
She smiled at him weakly, as if testing out an expression she was none to familiar with. You said much the same to me before, Sam.  
  
Well, yah didn't seem to have really heard me the first time around.  
  
She smiled that smile again, and this time it was somewhat stronger. What was it you said? You ice a wound and it takes away the pain, but you keep it there too long and it doesn't heal. It just goes numb. You lose it.  
  
Something like that. Yah've been icing your wounds for long enough.  
  
I think... I think it was a period of grace. A time to rest until I was strong enough to heal. She paused. I stood at my own grave today, Sam. I stood in the snow and I fell on my knees. I stood at my own grave and in the end I walked away. I don't know who I am any more. I'm not... I'm not everything I need to be. I'm just me.  
  
He squeezed her hands tighter once more, then gently kissed the palms. He knew somehow that if he was to really lose her it would be now, at this crossroads, and that this time it would be permanent. he started, unsure of what else to say to keep her there.  
  
She squeezed his hands back and that something real settled very firmly in her eyes. Her voice was thick and low, hoarse, and she looked at him as if she expected him to bolt. My name is Emma, she said, the words trailing easily off into the snow that surrounded them, into the comforting cocoon of warmth now whiring from the heating vents. He kissed her then, lightly. She tasted like snow and maple, and her breath was warm on his cheek as she whispered one last time, as if discovering something precious. My name is Emma.  
  
  
  
End   
  
  



End file.
